Leggatt, Boyle lead Griffins to successful day at USPORTS championship

Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics

VICTORIA – With personal bests across the board, an all-star honour and two school records, you could say the 2017 USPORTS cross-country championship was a huge success for the MacEwan Griffins.

Hannah Leggatt finished as a Canada West second team all-star, and Aaron Boyle set a new standard for the fastest 10K in MacEwan's men's history at Sunday's championship in Victoria, B.C.

The Griffins women's team finished 16^th out of 22 competing teams (fifth in Canada West) on the Beacon Hill Park course.

"The best part about it is the athletes said they felt good as they were running," said Griffins head coach Drew Carver. "They had a positive attitude and their performance showed up. There were a few girls we watched who were top runners and they folded under the pressure, but our girls ran well. Very proud."

Leggatt finished the 8K in 30:19.33, good for 33^rd in USPORTS, just a little back of winner Sasha Gollish of Toronto (27:36.27). Her time was ninth best among Canada West competitors, placing her on the second all-star team (seven make each squad). She missed repeating as a conference first team all-star by just over six seconds.

"Overall, she had an outstanding performance today, running the fastest 8K MacEwan University's ever had," said Carver of the Edmonton product, who has now won conference awards for three-straight years (also winning Canada West rookie of the year in 2015).

"For a young lady who really was primarily an 800-metre runner (in high school), she's adapted to the long distance and training. Every year she has stepped up and gotten stronger."

Roxanne Skoreyko just missed a Canada West all-star award by 14 seconds after finishing the 8K in 30:55.85, even though the mature student-athlete from Lac La Biche, AB was racing against many females half her age. She placed 59^th in USPORTS and 18^th in Canada West.

"The course was a little bit tough in that the number of bodies on the race course made it difficult to pass," said Carver. "I watched Roxanne kind of duking it out with a couple of girls. There was a block of three of them that kept getting in front of her as they were going around corners. She had to kind of take a real wide loop at it and get a straight-away to outrun them. But that's what racing's all about. She ran a personal best time. Hannah ran a personal best time and all the girls did. Even the guys today ran their fastest 10K times ever."

Rookie Abby Ackerman (31:45.31, 87^th, 26^th CW), fourth-year Chanelle Gagne (32:02.44, 99^th, 29^th CW) and first-year Jocelyn Leffers (34:52.52, 147^th, 49^th CW) rounded out MacEwan's women's results.

Although the Griffins didn't field a full men's team due to not enough runners reaching the high standard nationals requires, their two competitors in the race made some noise.

Boyle, a freshman from Edmonton, ran the 10K in 34:03.74, breaking teammate Scott Kohlman's school record of 34:18.3 set at the 2016 nationals in Quebec. It was good for a 100^th-place finish in the USPORTS ranks (35^th, Canada West).

Kohlman, a second-year student-athlete from Bashaw, AB, also bettered his time from last year, but finished just behind Boyle after a run of 34:08.76. He placed 103rd in USPORTS (37^th in Canada West).

Yves Sikubwabo of Laval won in 31:14.54, while Calgary's Russell Pennock was the top Canada West runner (31:36.35).

"The start was so fast. There was a mass group that went off at an unbelievably fast pace and our guys didn't quite go with them," said Carver. "But then what they had to do was work their way up through the crowd.

"There was a group of about 25 guys that kind of fell in between Scott and Aaron, even though they were no more than 50 metres apart. That always gave Aaron a little bit of an advantage of staying ahead of Scott," he added. "As they finally strung out and got down to where there were only two or three people between them, Scott couldn't make up that ground, so Aaron led in front of Scott throughout the whole race."

Carver noted the race conditions were challenging because of a downpour that started before the women's race and only let up halfway through when plenty of mud created slippery footfalls all over the course.

"At one point, they were going around a corner and you couldn't see their feet because they were sinking in," he said.

"But that's what all this racing is about. You go hard and it makes it difficult to pick up the pace. They all did it. They all ran as fast as they could go, so I was very proud of the team. I liked the way they performed today. It was a good finish for everybody."