Griffins will sharpen themselves against top talent at York Open, hunt for new records
Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Armed with perhaps the most talented women's relay team that they've ever assembled, the MacEwan Griffins head to Toronto this weekend, looking to break the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference record.
The mark of 4:03.25 was set at last year's York University Open by … you guessed it … the MacEwan Griffins women's relay team.
Three-quarters of that foursome will run this weekend – Valerie Schlottke, Nikita Case and Hannah Leggatt – but middle-distance runner Chanelle Gagne didn't return and has been replaced by sprinting specialist Amanda Ntiamoah. On paper, that means they should be faster.
"We will have a strong women's 4x400 team," said Carver. "If everything goes well, we'd like to break the current record of 4:03. We're hoping to go close to sub four minutes."
The York Open is staged on a fast track and offers MacEwan's top indoor track athletes a chance to sharpen themselves against a field full of U SPORTS competition.
"Being that it's York, it's a banked 200-metre track, so I expect some pretty fast times," said Carver. "Being basically in the heart of Canada, we're going to see a lot of top-notch sprinters.
"The kids are excited for it," he added. "They love that competition because it's not going to be easy, that's for sure."
Schlottke, Case and Ntiamoah will also all run the women's 300-metre dash – setting up an intriguing in-house showdown. Case still holds the ACAC record in the distance – a 41.55-second trip at the 2017 ACAC Championship that beat Ntiamoah's old mark (41.81).
Schlottke shouldn't be discounted either as she finished ahead of Ntiamoah at last month's Golden Bear Open, but had to pull out of last weekend's MacEwan University Invitational when she tweaked a leg muscle before the race.
"We get to see it all again," said Carver of his sprinters going head to head. "This time, hopefully nobody pulls a muscle in the warmup."
Leggatt – a workhorse in several middle and long-distance events – will run the 600 metres on Saturday.
"This hasn't been the focus of her training, but I think she can put a pretty good time forward," said Carver. "That's more or less getting her ready for the ACAC Championship, so she's got a qualifying time for everything."
On the men's side, MacEwan will also field a 4x400 relay team – Scott Kohlman, Thomas Cross-Trush, Colin Walker and Reece Runco.
The latter three will be running the men's 300-metre dash – a distance that Cross-Trush holds the ACAC record in. Kohlman, who is the men's team workhorse, will be focusing on a longer distance.
"Scott's going to get the hard pull because he's going to be running a 1500 in York," said Carver. "He's going to get about a 40-minute recovery and then he's going to lay out a hard 400 (in the relay). But this is not unusual for Scott based on his effort last year. He banged out every event and survived, so I think this will be easy for him."
