Central OK duo leads large contingent to provincial X-C championships

A spirited pair of internationally competitive Kelowna-area athletes lived up to high expectations by running strong to Okanagan Valley senior cross country championships on Tuesday in Summerland.

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Taryn O’Neill of George Elliot Secondary School in Lake Country and Brock Hoel, an online student with Heritage Christian School in Kelowna, both took charge early along the hilly trails surrounding the Summerland rodeo grounds to claim Valley gold.

Battling gastrointestinal infection for the past seven weeks and unable to run at last year’s Central Zone championships, O’Neill was uncertain she would compete in Tuesday’s race that attracted 304 athletes.

But the Grade 12 student found enough internal fortitude to not only take part, but also withstand serious challenges from runners-up Annika Ariano of Vernon (W.L. Seaton) and Tegan Heshka of Kamloops (Sahali).

O’Neill, who committed verbally this week to a full athletic scholarship at Villanova University, led the 4.9-kilometre race from start to finish, with Ariano and Heshka jostling only a few strides behind.

O’Neill said that because of her sickness and not being able to run for the entire week before the Valley championships, she didn’t expect to take, much less hold the lead in the race against 47 senior competitors.

“But once I got out there and went out in front, I wasn’t willing to let it go,” she conceded. “I could feel Annika picking up the pace at the end and I knew I had to respond the best I could.”

The 16-year-old (she’ll be 17 on Nov. 18) held on for a two-second victory over Ariano (20:19 and 20:21 respectively) while Heshka placed third in 20:34.

While O’Neill finished as the top Okanagan qualifier for the B.C. School Sports cross country championships Nov. 4 at Jericho Beach Park in Vancouver, she’s still debating whether or not she’ll compete. She ran to fourth place at the high school provincials last year at Telemark in West Kelowna.

“I’m still far from recovering from sickness and I’m simply not the same runner I was in the summer,” said O’Neill.

She also indicated she will likely not run at the BC Athletics club championships on Saturday in Abbotsford.

“I wouldn’t be able to race at the same level as most of my competitors,” she noted. “It wouldn’t be worth it for the amount of stress I’m putting on my sick body. It’s really heartbreaking to not be at my best in my senior year of high school.”

O’Neill finished third at the BC Athletics national championships in Kingston, Ont. last year.

Coached by 2004 Olympian (1500 metres) Malindi Elmore, O’Neill is coming off a breakthrough year on the track this summer.

Making her debut on a national team, she represented Canada at the Junior PanAm Games in Trujillo, Peru, winning a silver medal with a personal-best time of 9:22 in the 3,000 metres. That was 40 seconds better than her PB of the previous year.

A provincial champion in both the 1,500 and 3,000 metres at the BC Athletics championships, O’Neill also competed for B.C. at the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg and qualified to represent the province at the Legion nationals, but was unable to attend after contracting Hepatitis A in Peru.

Looking ahead to 2018, O’Neill, who visited five universities before deciding on Villanova, said her main focus will be to qualify for the world junior track and field championships in Finland in the summer. She also hopes to do well at the B.C. high school and BC Athletics championships and qualify for nationals.

“I’d also like to get down to the States for some collegiate races early on in the season, but most of all, I want to have a really good and fun grad year.”

Meanwhile, Hoel, running cross country after a gruelling summer of provincial and national triathlon competition, won Tuesday’s Valley championship comfortably over four-loop 6.5-kilometre course in Summerland with a time of 23 minutes 58 seconds — nearly a minute ahead of second-place Turner Woodroff (24:09) of Okanagan Mission Secondary.

Settling into seventh place early on in what was an extremely fast start for the 56 Grade 11 and 12 runners, Hoel moved up quickly and was running behind the leader, Logan Hwang of Kamloops (Westsyde) on the final hill on the first loop.

“Logan started to pick it up at the end of the first lap and I went with him, throwing in a sprint in the last hill to catch him,” recalled Hoel. “After that I felt good — really good — and found myself pushing the pace and taking the lead as I finished the first lap. I just tried to run my own pace, and increase my lead.

“That was exactly my plan going into the race,” said Hoel, who had won the Central Zone title a week earlier and two other Kelowna-area high school races this fall.

Hoel, a third-place finisher among juniors at last year’s B.C. high school championships, said the Summerland course was just as challenging as at Telemark in 2016 and tested the runners’ ability to surge with the constant change in elevation.

“ I try to not think of a course as easier or harder, just faster or slower, because I should always be giving it my best,” he explained. “Last year’s course was much steeper and had a more constant up and then down back to the start/finish.”

While Hoel will lead the Okanagan contingent at the B.C. high school championships on Nov. 4, he’s decided not to compete at the BC Athletics club championships, but rather begin preparation for another busy year of triathloning.

The 16-year-old Grade 11 student’s two main goals for 2018 is to qualify for — and win — the Youth Olympic Games in Argentina and race to win the junior world championships in Gold Coast, Australia.

Under the tutelage of coach Luke Way of Kelowna, Hoel competed in his first elite race at the national triathlon championships in Ottawa this past summer and was one of only five juniors to qualify for the A final.

Lining up alongside Olympians and men up to twice his age, he finished in 27th place overall and fourth among the juniors. He was the youngest competitor.

A member of Team BC at the Canada Summer Games, Hoel finished fourth, 12 seconds off the bronze medal in the individual triathlon and helped his B.C. team to a pair of relay gold medals.

Prior to the Summer Games, Triathlon Canada had asked Hoel to compete at the North American championships in Magog, Que., based on his performance in Ottawa, but he chose to focus on the CSG.

Hwang took third place in Tuesday’s senior race with a time of 24:33 while Jacob Harris of OKM ran to fourth in 24:36

Other top-10 finishes from the Central Okanagan came from Jasper Stone of Aberdeen Hall (sixth - 25:28) and Ian Williams (Kelowna Secondary - 25:53). Michael Denman of KSS finished 11th in 25:54 and Gavin Newall of Mt. Boucherie came in 14th (26:17).

KSS won the senior boys’ team event with 41 points, two better than South Kamloops and 15 ahead of third-place Summerland. OKM placed fourth among the eight teams.

In the senior girls team competition that included 47 runners, Revelstoke took top spot, 14 points ahead of Salmon Arm and 24 more than third-place W.L. Seaton.

Keagan Ingram of Summerland led the field of 87 junior boys over the 4.9-kilometre course with a time of 17:58 while Kelowna Christian School’s Michael Schriemer was runner-up in 18:45. Third place went to Fred Albrechtson of Penticton.

Harley Derickson of Const. Neil Bruce in West Kelowna posted a time of 19:07, good for fourth place, while Connor Hobbs of KSS finished seventh (19:33), Joel Worman of KLO placed eighth (19:37) and Lincoln Hoel of Heritage Christian finished 10th (19:56).

Summerland took the team title, with Vernon Secondary and W.L. Seaton running to silver and bronze respectively.

The junior girls’ 4.9K race saw Rutland Secondary School’s Jaxon Slaney led the field of 73 runners with a time of 21:18. She was followed by Tayla Ingram of Summerland (21:21) and Vanessa Hicks of Valleyview in Kamloops (21:31).

Ella Rolleston of OKM placed fifth overall in 21:35 while Danielle Selby of KSS was the next best Central Okanagan runner (11th) with a clocking of 22:25.

The top 20 individuals and top three teams in each category qualified for the provincial championships.

Kelowna Secondary coach, Tom Carlson, said cross country is seeing a huge growth, due in large part to the “fantastic” trail network springing up throughout the Valley, and a growing pool of enthusiastic school-based coaches.

“The atmosphere these coaches have fostered is amazingly supportive,” he said. “I see pretty much every coach out there encouraging and cheering for every kid regardless of the school they come from.

“That starts to rub off on the athletes too. I see kids from rival teams high-fiving each-other before and after races, and cheering on each other.”

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