Indoor track team's dominant run of championships highlights ACAC tenure

Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – What the MacEwan Griffins were able to accomplish in the brief seven-year history of ACAC indoor track competition is astounding.

The Griffins women's team won five championships in six years and were the favourites to make it six in seven before the 2020 meet was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These are among the top memories for Griffins head coach Drew Carver as he reflects on the legacy of the Griffins indoor track program, which has been discontinued as part of MacEwan's divestment of its ACAC membership.

"It makes you very proud as a coach, knowing the ladies were able to pull that off – winning five of the six years we had the championship and I strongly believe we were in contention to do it again," he said.

"Some of the other schools had gotten a lot stronger, but I still think we had the edge over them."

In the hypothetical world if the championship were run, who would bet against the Griffins, considering their, um, track record.

The team won the inaugural ACAC women's indoor track championship in 2013-14 behind dominant duo Lesley Koopman and Vanessa Trofimenkoff - who finished 1-2 at the 2013 CCAA cross-country nationals before claiming four banners in a row from 2015-19 as the torch passed from Trofimenkoff to many other great athletes.

Vanessa Trofimenkoff won three golds and a silver during a dominant 2015-16 championship, leading the Griffins to one of five women's banners in six years (Linda Miller photo).

As Trofimenkoff led the Griffins to the 2015-16 team title with three golds and a silver, she was, at the same time, passing the torch to Leggatt (who finished just behind her that season with two silvers).

A year later, Leggatt had as dominant a season an individual competitor can have, winning the women's 3000, 1500 and 1000, taking silver in the 600 and helping the MacEwan 4x400m relay team win gold, too. She finished as one of four Griffins athletes to win ACAC player of the year, joining Trofimenkoff (2015-16), Scott Kohlman (2016-17) and Ember Large (2018-19).

"I enjoyed the years when we had really strong women's teams," said Carver. "Hannah (Leggatt) showed them how dominant she could be one year – she was on the podium for pretty much every race she ran. She pretty much got more than half the points one year. Then Vanessa and all the athletes who ran with her were a high point for the program.

"There have been a lot of great athletes who've come and gone through the program."

Large is another, putting down a legendary performance last season when she won four medals and ACAC indoor track athlete of the year on just four hours of sleep after returning from Russia where she represented Canada in cross-country skiing at the Winter Universiade.

"Ember Large, what she did last year was unbelievable," said Carver. "She races for two weeks in Russia on the ski team, flies back and less than 12 hours after landing in the country she's back on the track racing for us. She's dead tired from FISU and has to go out and do it again but ends up getting athlete of the meet award."

Scott Kohlman won four silver medals and a bronze during a workhorse performance in 2016-17, becoming one of four Griffins to win ACAC indoor track athlete of the year awards (Robert Antoniuk photo).

Kohlman was a workhorse in 2016-17 as well – claiming three silvers and a bronze before helping the 4x400m relay team strike silver.

MacEwan's men never managed to win an ACAC Championship, although they had several second-place finishes.

"The men's team, it's a bit of a heartbreak," said Carver. "We had three or four years we finished second on the men's side. We've consistently been there, but we've just never had that extra distance runner or two we needed to get those extra points.

"I always have a memory of Scott Kohlman and Brandon Toal stepping up the line and running every race except the 300 (in 2016-17). Both those guys would cross the line and then race the next one just like it was their first race. We came within six points of winning it. There were some pretty good athletes on that team."

Altogether, Griffins' indoor track athletes captured 65 medals, including 22 golds, in six championships. They also broken multiple records over the years and still hold three of them: Nikita Case in both women's 300 (41.55) and 600 (1:37:35) and the 2017-18 relay team of Amanda Ntiamoah, Valerie Schlottke, Case and Leggatt in the women's 4x400 (4:02.32).

MacEwan's 2017-18 women's 4x400m relay team of Nikita Case, left, Hannah Leggatt, Amanda Ntiamoah and Valerie Schlottke still holds the ACAC 4x400 record of 4:02.32 (Len Joudrey photo).

"The track student athletes and coaching staff have made a spectacular contribution to MacEwan in a very short tenure as an ACAC team," said Director of Athletics Ken Schildroth. "The coaches founded the program and enhanced the student experience every year with outstanding performance of student athletes."

All of this success happened simultaneously while opposing teams got better.

"The best part about it is we watched the level of competition surge with the ACAC," said Carver. "They started out as a fun run group that suddenly got serious and took their sport to the next level of competition.

"We had some pretty phenomenal athletes from other schools we got to see – Fiona Benson and Jamie Wigmore, Mirelle Martins. These were all great athletes who we later saw on the world stage. That's kind of neat to think about all the things we saw as a group."

Drew Carver and longtime assistant coach Linda Miller built a strong indoor track program that will be remembered for a long time in ACAC lore (Linda Miller photo).