Saint John, NB - The STFX track team competed at the Subway AUS Championship at the Irving Oil Field House on Friday and Saturday and are coming back to campus with 10 medals including two gold, three silver and five bronze.
STFX head coach Eric Gillis noted that he was "quite happy with how the weekend went on a lot of fronts."
"Our goals were to win some of the individual events and we had opportunities do so in several of the men's and women's races and many of our athletes finished within the top 12 and will qualify for U SPORTS so I was pleased with their performances."
Caroline Ash was named AUS female rookie of the year as she won individual gold and silver medals, along with a relay bronze. Ash was the AUS champion in an exciting 1500m race, finishing with the top time of 4:36.57.
She was the silver medalist in the 1000m race with a time of 2:56.14, just a fraction off the gold medal, and was a member of the X-Women 4x400m bronze medal relay team. Mairin Canning, Caden Lee and Brynn Hebert were also on the 4x400m squad that narrowly missed the silver medal position. They had a time of 4:05.09, just behind second place UNB (4:00.96) and first place Dalhousie (3:55.09).
The X-Women 4x800m relay team claimed the silver medal in Friday's competition. Team members included Natasha Chojnacki, Maya Black, Taylor Rasmussen and Hebert with a finishing time of 9:39.01. Dalhousie won the race with a 9:17.61 result and UNB was third at 9:42.36.
AUS cross country champion Allie Sandluck claimed another championship title on the weekend as she won the 3000m race, and in exciting fashion. She held the lead, then lost the lead, and regained it with just 400m to go to cross the finish line first at 9:58.01 and claim the gold medal.
Sandluck also won a bronze medal in the 1500m race, clocking in at 4:37.71 for that event.
Rounding out the seven AUS medals on the women's side was Brynn Hebert who won bronze in the 1000m race with a 2:56.90 result.
Coach Gillis noted that he was "happy with the relay medals, the teams all ran good races. Our women;s team placed third overall which was a great showing."
"Our X-Men team was solid in scoring and came fifth overall, with a lot of our runners earning personal bests and competing at the top level."
Veteran X-Men runner Jacob Benoit shaved 11 seconds off his personal best time in the 3000m as he won the silver medal with a time of 8:19.63.
The X-Men also won a pair of bronze medals in both the 4x400m and 4x800m relay races.
The 4x400m team of Adrian Brennan, Tyler Baker, Liam Patterson and Jack Wierzbicki crossed the line at 3:30.45 behind Dalhousie (3:22.79) and Saint Mary's (3:30.09), while the 4x800m team of Baker, Owen Flemming, Patterson and Wierzbicki clocked in at 8:07.58 behind Dalhousie (7:40.48) and UNB (7:41.71).
The complete team standings saw the Dalhousie Tigers win both the men's and women's banners.
The Tigers men's team garnered 124 points and were followed by Saint Mary's (79), UNB Reds (76), Moncton (63), Memorial (21), STFX (21), UPEI (13) and Cape Breton (10).
On the women's side, Dalhousie had 155 points, followed by UNB (101), STFX (54), Moncton (31), Memorial (26), UPEI (11), Cape Breton (10), Saint Mary's (10) and Acadia (1).
The top qualifiers from all events at the AUS championship will advance to the U SPORTS championship being hosted by the University of Saskatchewan March 9-11.
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Recap courtesy Krista McKenna, STFX Athletics
