Pair of Muskie runners off to OFSAA

For the first time in a number of years, two members of the Muskie cross-country running team will be competing at OFSAA.
Hailey Beaudry and Sydney Radigan will heading to Brampton for the provincial championships on Saturday.

“It’s very exciting for everyone involved with the program,” enthused coach Natasha Shack.
“In the five years that I have been coaching here at the high school, we haven’t sent anyone to the provincials for cross-country running,” she noted.
“But we have had runners go in the past.”
Radigan, who is in Grade 9, was the top performer for the black-and-gold at the NWOSSAA finals last Wednesday in Thunder Bay, finishing in second place in the three-km Midget girls’ race with a time of 14:00.55.
“She ran a great race and she had a very strong finish,” recalled coach Kendall Richardson, who accompanied the Muskies to Thunder Bay.
“She actually finished second in the same event, but at the elementary level, last year so it was nice to see her maintain her placing in that event,” she added.
Beaudry, who is in Grade 10, punched her ticket to the all-Ontarios with a fifth-place showing in the four-km junior girls’ race, crossing the line with a time of 19:10.62.
“She did fantastic and she maintained a good pace throughout the race,” Richardson said.
“A good talent of Hailey’s is that she can make up places by passing people along the way,” she explained.
“And while that didn’t happen as much for her here [in Thunder Bay] as it had in other races, she more than held her own out there.”
Nine other Muskies competed at NWOSSAA, with Savannah Chapman having the highest finish with a 16th-place result in the Midget girls’ race.
“Victoria Hammond had a really strong finish in the senior girls’ race, and we also had Tyler Jourdain finish high in the senior boys, which we were proud to see,” Richardson said.
“We also had a number of students who finished their first NWOSSAA competition, and it was really great to see them finish the whole course,” she lauded.
“When some of them started this year with us, they couldn’t run a kilometre without stopping and now they can run a whole race, so seeing how they have developed and grow has been great.”
Also representing the Muskies at NWOSSAA were Kennedy Latimer, Brooklyn Patey, Alexis Hampe, Thomas Lepine, Ashley Dupuis, and Arthur Van Ael.
With Beaudry and Radigan set to make the trek to Brampton, Shack and Richardson will be doing some finishing touches with both runners to get them ready for Saturday’s meet.
“We will probably just do some more hills and sprints work, which is something that we had done already leading up to the event in Thunder Bay,” Shack noted.
“At the end of the season, though, the girls are at the peak of their training, and the main thing we want to make sure of is that we don’t overdo anything,” she stressed.