2012 CIS cross country championships: Guelph sweeps team titles for seventh straight year

LONDON, Ont. (CIS) – The University of Guelph Gryphons resumed their dominance in CIS cross-country running as they once again claimed both the women’s and men’s team banners at the 2012 national meet at London’s Thames Valley Golf Course, on Saturday afternoon.

It was the eighth consecutive banner performance for the Guelph women and the seventh straight for the men’s squad, extending their own CIS records. The Gryphons have now racked up 21 team titles in their prestigious history, also a CIS mark, eight more than Victoria.

In individual competition, Guelph’s Andrea Seccafien and Kelly Wiebe of the Regina Cougars captured the gold medals. Seccafien was the second Gryphon straight Gryphon to be crowned, 12 months after a triumph by current teammate Geneviève Lalonde, while Wiebe became the first-ever individual champion from Regina – female or male – and shattered the course record en route to his historic win.

In the women’s five kilometre event, the Gryphons finished with a remarkable 21 points, taking the top two positions and putting five runners in the top eight. Seccafien, a Guelph native in her fourth year of CIS eligibility, came on strong late in the race, making up a nine-second deficit at the halfway point to finish with a time of 17 minutes and 23 seconds. Teammate Carise Thompson from Lynden, Ont., finished seven seconds later, while McMaster’s Victoria Coates made a phenomenal final push to overtake defending champion Lalonde in the final few metres and claim bronze in a time of 17:31.

McMaster placed second in the team standings with 62 points, while host Western rounded out the podium with 107.

“I got caught up a little bit at the start, but I just stayed calm as the race ran through the halfway point and just worked my way up,” said Seccafien. “With about 1.5 km to go I knew I had second but was still looking up to first. This last straight is so good to me, I’ve raced here twice already, so I just let it go and hoped that I could catch [Lalonde].”

“When I was giving Andrea commentary early on it was just keep cool, stay cool,” said Guelph head coach Dave Scott Thomas. “It was a perfectly delivered race plan, just staying in the right position and attacking off the back end.”

Guelph fared just as well in the men’s 10-kilometre event placing second, third and fourth to finish with 38 points overall, well ahead of second-place Laval (101) and Windsor (104).

Wiebe, a fifth-year senior from Swift Current, Sask., led from wire-to-wire, getting in front early and only building on his lead to finish with a time of 30:21.4. It was an unprecedented time for the Thames Valley Course, shattering the previous record of 30:57.0 set by Western’s Guy Schultz in 1997.

Guelph’s Ross Proudfoot took the silver medal in 31:05.4, with teammate Aaron Hendrikx winning bronze in 31:09.4.

“This is exactly what I came here to do,” said Wiebe, who had claimed CIS bronze in both 2009 and 2010 but missed last season due to an injury. “I knew it was going to be good competition out front and we were going to run a fast time. I just wanted to battle it out, no one really came with me so I made my goal to get that course record and it came out pretty good.”

Scott Thomas, named both the CIS men’s and women’s coach of the year for the second straight season, was obviously thrilled with his teams’ performance.

“We were really confident, we’ve been good all season and tend to peak really well. Monday night about midway through the workout we just hit this space where you could really see we’re going to nail it. It was terrific.”

NOTE: Today’s championship marked 50 years of CIS cross-country running on the men’s side. The inaugural CIS men’s championship was held in 1963, while female runners had to wait until 1980 to make their CIS debut.

Complete results: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/xc/2012/files/sched_results

Team standings

1. Guelph, 21 points
2. McMaster, 62
3. Western, 107
4. Victoria, 161
5. Calgary, 195
6. Windsor, 197
7. McGill, 199
8. Dalhousie, 245
9. Toronto, 260
10. Waterloo, 265
11. Queen’s, 273
12. StFX, 274
13. Trinity Western, 336
14. Laval, 366
15. Saskatchewan, 366
16. Sherbrooke, 391
17. Manitoba, 415

Individual honours

Athlete of the year: Andrea Seccafien, Guelph
Rookie of the year: Madeline Yungblut, Guelph
Student-Athlete Community Service Award: Bridget Pyke, Calgary
Coach of the year: Dave Scott Thomas, Guelph

First All-Canadians (top 7 finishers)
1. Andrea Seccafien, Guelph, 17:23.4
2. Carise Thompson, Guelph, 17:30.7
3. Victoria Coates, McMaster, 17:31.4
4. Geneviève Lalonde, Guelph, 17:31.7
5. Fiona Benson, Trinity Western, 17:35.9
6. Madeline Yungblut, Guelph, 17:36.2
7. Lindsay Carson, McMaster, 17:45.2

Second All-Canadians (finishers 8-14)
8. Joanna Brown, Guelph, 17:47.2
9. Nadine Frost, Guelph, 17:47.23
10. Jen Corrick, Windsor, 17:47.9
11. Amanda Truelove, Western, 17:53.7
12. Frida Aspnaes, New Brunswick, 17.55.2
13. Maddy McDonald, McMaster, 17:55.4
14. Julie-Anne Staelhi, Queen’s, 17:58.7