The X-Men cross country team earned their second consecutive podium finish at the national stage this past weekend as they claimed the bronze medal at the CIS championship in Kingston, ON. They were silver medalists in 2008.

The finish was even more impressive considering the X-Men have been hit with the flu bug as of late.

“Under the conditions, we were very pleased,” said StFX head coach Bernie Chisholm. “They’re ecstatic because it was a tough two weeks for the team, both men and women. They all persevered and I’m extremely proud of them and what they accomplished under the conditions.”

"Most of them were only able to run for 30 minutes a day since the AUS championships. And they didn’t actually have any workouts the last two weeks and most days they weren’t able to run at all.”

The top finisher for the X-Men in their true team effort was David Gerych in 20th place. He crossed the line at 32:24 minutes, in what was a fast CIS race. Petr Doubravsky was not far behind in 23rd spot at 32:31 and Lee McCarron was 24th running beside Doubravsky at 32:32.

Brent Addison finished the race for X at 33:01 in 37th position overall and freshman Julian MacLean improved his personal best by close to three minutes with a 33:45 finish in 66th place. Connor McGuire placed 81st (34:06) and John Corbit was 97th (34:44) for the bronze medal X-Men.

The 10k race was won by Guelph’s Matt Brunsting (30:43) who won his second consecutive CIS individual title. His teammate Kyle Boorsma was second (30:44), followed by Regina’s Kelly Wiebbe (30:49).

The top AUS runner was Dalhousie's Russell Christie, the 2009 AUS champion. He finished in 7th place overall with a time of 31:32. 

The Universitry of Guelph claimed the CIS team banner and gold medal, their fourth consecutive championship, earning 31 points on the day. The Windsor Lancers were second in the team standings with 92 points, then the X-Men came in with 170 points to earn the bronze. Regina (186) and Calgary (222) wrapped up the top five in the team standings as a total of 19 teams and 130 runners competed in the race at Fort Henry Hill in Kingston.

For the CIS coverage on the race, click here. The men’s individual and team results are also available.
StFX Sports Information


StFX X-Men - 2009 CIS bronze medalists