X-Women, X-Men primed for AUS track and field championships
By Corey LeBlanc
The STFX X-Women and X-Men are primed for a strong performance at the upcoming conference championship track and field meet.
The White and Blue – under head coach Eric Gillis – will compete in the Subway Atlantic University Sport (AUS) Track and Field Championships on Friday, Feb. 24 and Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Irving Oil Field House in Saint John.
"It has gone pretty well," the Antigonish native and former X-Men runner offers of the season for his student-athletes.
Gillis adds that they are "on track" to fashioning a "strong team performance" this weekend.
He notes that STFX has continued to make "great strides" towards its goal of becoming the "top" middle to long-distance running program in the conference.
"They have really been stepping up, and are having strong indoor campaigns this season," Gillis says of a trio of X-Men freshmen – Luke MacDonald (Pictou, NS), Owen Flemming (Bedford, NS) and Liam Patterson (Toronto, ON) – who will help with depth on the X-Men front.
He adds that a couple of White and Blue veterans – Jacob Benoit (Windsor, NS) and Luc Gallant (Wellington, PEI) – have been "hitting their stride" at the right time of year.
"They are running very well," Gillis says.
Benoit – a second-team All-Canadian in cross country last fall, will race in the 1500m and 3000m this weekend, while Gallant, who recently established an indoor personal best (PB) in the 3000m, will be looking to repeat that feat.
The status of a couple of key X-Men freshmen, who are battling injury and illness, Liam McCullagh (Toronto, ON) and Jack O'Connell (Toronto, ON) – is up in the air.
"It would be nice to have them," Gillis offers.
On the women's side, he notes that X has a "little more depth."
"They're in the best fitness we've seen – and set to have their best races, which we believe are still to come," he says of Allie Sandluck (Thorburn, NS), Mairann Canning (Antigonish, NS) and Eileen Benoit (Windsor, NS), and their prospects in the 3000m.
In the AUS championship race for that distance, Gillis expects to "score a lot of points with them."
He notes that there is a "great chance" that at least one of those runners will qualify for a spot at nationals.
"Keep an eye on them," Gillis says of the X-Women's 4X800m team, which bested the school record by seven seconds earlier this season.
Although the foursome of Sandluck, Canning, Caroline Ash (Newmarket, ON) and Brynn Hebert (Wetaskiwin, AB) set that mark, Gillis notes that – a perfect reflection of the team's depth – that line-up may change in the race for AUS gold. Freshman Caden Lee (Richmond Hill, ON) – who set a PB in the 1500m earlier this season – is primed to crack that stellar group.
In the lead-up to this weekend's conference competition, STFX student-athletes travelled to meets in Halifax and Boston.
At the Saint Mary's University (SMU) Open at the Canada Games Centre, X-Men runners toed the line in the 300, 600, 1000, 1500 and 3000-metre events, while the X-Women raced in the 300, 600m and 1500 metres.
Flemming – with a 2:31.12 – placed third in the 1000-metre race, while Gallant garnered second place in the 3000-metre event, with a clocking of 8:45.28.
On the women's side, Lee – 4:44.81 – raced to first in the 1500m, while Bridget Keedwell (Charlottetown, PEI) – 10:39.53 – collected a third-place spot in the 3000m.
South of the border – at the 2023 Boston University David Hemery Valentine Invitational – six White and Blue student-athletes competed against runners from a variety of NCAA and U SPORTS schools.
Hebert posted the fifth-best time by an X-Women runner in the 1000m (2:52.59), which placed her 21st in the 99-runner field, while Ash finished 170th in a field of 288 racers with a PB (5:04.27) in the women's mile.
In the 3000m race, Benoit established a PB and fifth-fastest time (9:55.81) in X-Women history, which ranked her 139th in the field of 283.
Sandluck in 165th, with a 10:01.28, and Canning in 182nd, with a PB of 10:05.74, also competed in the 3000m.
Jacob Benoit – the lone X-Man to race in Boston – clocked a 4:12.14 in the mile, placing him 199th in the 432-racer field.
Gillis explains STFX measures success through a lens of combining men's and women's results in the 600m to 3000m events, plus the 4x800m relay; comparing them to the results for other AUS programs in the same distances. In 2022, using those metrics, STFX – with 66 points – finished second to the perennial AUS champion Dalhousie Tigers (81), while the UNB Reds would have been third (54).
With Dalhousie remaining strong – and UNB much improved – Gillis says that STFX's student-athletes are looking forward to "tough competition and how it brings the best out of them." He adds that keeping their second-place standing will be a fight, but they will be "up for the challenge."
Twenty student-athletes – men's and women's combined – will represent the White and Blue at the AUS championship meet.
"We are going to be ready," Gillis says.
AUS student-athletes who qualify this weekend will move on to the 2023 U SPORTS Track and Field Championships, which are scheduled for March 9 to 11, at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
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