Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
KINGSTON, Ont. – Emma Steele capped off a sublime rookie cross-country season for the MacEwan Griffins, winning a Canada West second team all-star award and breaking the school women's 8K record in the process at the U SPORTS national championship in Kingston, Ont., Saturday.
The Edmonton native ran the 8K in 30:19.8, narrowly breaking Hannah Leggatt's MacEwan record of 30:20, set at the nationals a year ago.
That time was good enough for 39th overall among 155 U SPORTS competitors, but more importantly 11th overall among Canada West runners. The top seven in the conference made the first team all-stars, while the next seven, including Steele, made the second team.
"I think it's the training plan (head coach) Drew (Carver) set for me and just putting in the effort and eating the right stuff and having such a supportive team," said Steele of how she was able to find so much success in her rookie university season that also included two top-10s in conference regional events earlier this fall.
Steele's award keeps alive a streak of five-straight years that MacEwan has had a Canada West all-star in cross-country, following Vanessa Trofimenkoff (2014-15) and Leggatt (2016-17).
Additionally, Steele narrowly missed winning the Canada West rookie of the year award, finishing 16 seconds behind winner Gabrielle Joffe of UBC.
"That's an amazing accomplishment," said Carver. "In her rookie year, she just blasted it. If it wasn't for this girl from California that UBC brought in, she would have been rookie of the year."
Steele said the key to Saturday's success was not going out too fast – a lesson the Griffins learned from their last regional event, at Calgary's Stewart Cup, when their times suffered.
"Drew told me to go out with the first group and try to hit my pace for the first 5K and then just keep picking it up and try to pass people," said the Vimy Ridge Academy product.
That pace was supposed to be 3:50 a kilometre, but Steele had so much in reserve, she picked up speed as the race went along and improved her average to 3:47.
"The UBC girl went out really hard and I'm glad Emma didn't go with here because I think that would have cost her," said Carver. "Emma ran pace for basically the first half of the race. Then in the last kilometres, she started to make a really hard charge and she did pick up about five seconds a kilometre from there on in.
"So, she did make a nice pick-up and was coming hard, but the UBC girl was just driving herself to stay ahead. As much as Emma was turning over and running faster, she couldn't catch her in the end."
Cassandra Mastel-Marr finished 136th overall and 43rd in Canada West with a time of 33:17.7 – a personal best by about 2:40.
"That's an amazing amount of time she knocked off," said Carver. "It's just incredible. She's been dealing with an ankle injury but has finally been able to do some steady training."
Shehzadi Abdul was also about 30 second faster than her PB in finishing 143rd (46th in Canada West) in 33:32.8. Ashley Tymkow was 152nd (52nd in Canada West) in 34:11.6, well off her best time earlier this season.
"I think it was just the nerves, the tension and excitement on the start line," said Carver. "I think Ashley was putting a little bit too much pressure on herself."
MacEwan's men's competitors also had slower times than they've previously posted as the windy day (with big gusts coming off Lake Ontario) hampered their efforts. Third-year veteran Scott Kohlman was almost a minute slower than he was last year in the 10K at the nationals, finishing in 127th (46th Canada West) in 35:08.4, while rookie Owen Guenette was 148th (55th Canada West) in 36:51.6.
"Both he and Owen were beginning to feel the effects of the race course," said Carver. "You could see their fourth lap was their slowest. The best thing about it, though, was I was watching Scott try to pass people and duke it out with some guys. Owen was in the same boat. He wasn't giving an inch, but it wasn't their fastest times.
"I think I can attribute that to a little bit of the volume we would have normally run wasn't there this year because we usually train on the trails and they were too snow-covered and greasy," he added.
Overall, the experience will be a great one for MacEwan's young team to build off for the future.
"All these rookies had a great, great day out there," said Carver. "They're a good bunch to have. They didn't back down and were out there challenging as much as they could."
