Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
CALGARY – Sometimes things just don't go according to plan.
The MacEwan Griffins went into Saturday's Stewart Cup race in Calgary – their final tune-up before U SPORTS nationals Nov. 9-10 in Kingston, Ont. – with a goal of pushing the pace to see if they could hang with the top competitors at the meet.
Across the board, it didn't work.
"Most of team took a race strategy of not sitting back, being at the front of the race and challenging ourselves to maintain that pace," said head coach Drew Carver. "And it kind of blew up in our face. We ended up with generally slower times all the way across the board."
Scott Kohlman finished 28th overall (and 20th among university runners) in the men's 10K with a time of 35:35 – a bit slower than his capabilities (he ran a 34:09 at nationals last year). Rookie Owen Guenette was 54th (36th in the university field) in 37:41.
"That's off of what Scott should have done, but he and Owen had aggressive starts and they paid the price the same way," said Carver. "I do expect those two to bounce back because they weren't that far off. The course was challenging for them, but at the same time it was perfect racing conditions.
"If we run a little more even pace, even take the first part easier, I think we'll have fast results at nationals."
In the women's 8K, Emma Steele topped the Griffins with a 23rd place finish (12th among university competitors) in a time of 33:00 – well off her top time this season of 31:05.
"We went at it a little bit different than the other ones. She was more aggressive at the start and it didn't pay off," said Carver.
"As I look at her as a rookie runner, there was only one rookie from Regina that beat her, so she's still doing well," he added of Cougars' Kaila Neigum, who finished just 19 seconds ahead of her. "I'm just hoping if we can put it together and have a better race strategy (at nationals) that she could be the top rookie (in Canada West)."
Ashley Tymkow finished 34th on Saturday (23rd among university competitors) in 34:35, also slower than the 32:54 she ran in Saskatoon last month.
The rest of the Griffins women's team, though, was at the back of the pack. Shehzadi Abdul (36:09), Cassandra Mastel-Marr (36:46) and Shaunice Burgers (40:57) finished among the bottom four competitors in the event, while Bailey Stang didn't finish due to the fast early pace.
That's going to leave Carver with a difficult decision as he challenged each women's athlete pre-race to finish in 35 minutes or less or they wouldn't be going to nationals, but he can't field a team with less than five competitors.
"I might pare the women's team down to just two athletes and the same for the men, we'll just take the two," he said.
"If we end up in that situation where we take (five women), we could be at the very bottom of the rankings out of 24 teams. The athletes know it's not fun when you're at the back there and not even in the thick of the race.
"That was what our idea was to challenge ourselves and push to be competitive, but instead we ended up having three runners at the tail end of the race."
Needless, to say, Carver will be going back to the strategy that worked better for the Griffins in previous races – hang back a bit off the start and get stronger as the race progresses.
"The worst thing about it is once you've put your plan in motion and go with it, it will either blow up in your face and really hurt you or you'll get a result you can work with," said Carver. "This weekend was a weekend that hit the team and the plan hard.
"It definitely told me when we go to nationals, do not put this plan into effect."
