(FREDERICTON, NB) The Laval Rouge et Or claimed both team titles Saturday afternoon at the UNB-St. Thomas interlock invitational meet. The X-Women were second overall and the X-Men fourth. STFX's Siona Chisholm ran to a second place individual showing in the women's race
Women's Race
The U SPORTS No. 3 ranked Laval Rouge et Or dominated the third meet on the 2021 Atlantic University Sport women's cross country schedule.
Laval's Jessy Lacourse (Quebec City, QC) won the eight-kilometre race, run at Fredericton's Kingswood Park, in a time of 28:06.
Siona Chisholm (Antigonish, NS), of the St FX X-Women, was second.
Laval runners finished 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th.
"It was a very tough race," said Chisholm. "I just wanted to hang in there and I think I did. I tried to keep my eyes on her shoulders and not let the gap get too big. I'm happy with the race, and the team did awesome."
UPEI's Paige Chisholm (Port Williams, NS) was the second AUS runner across the line, in 8th place overall, while Dalhousie's Kelsey Hogan (Halifax, NS) was third among AUS competitors and 9th overall.
The event was run under a constant drizzle and cool temperatures.
"When it starts to rain and gets a little bit cooler everybody starts to shrink a little bit and you saw that across the board, from a lot of people," said REDS head coach Chris Belof. "But conditions are the conditions we have to deal with regardless."
Unmoved by the Laval dominance, Belof says their visit allows the Atlantic conference to see a real measuring stick.
"Whenever we get to see Laval, we get to measure ourselves against one of the best, and that's a cool thing," he said. "Politely, we expected to be right where we were in the conference and we expected Laval to be at the front of the pack all day, and that's exactly how it played out."
WXC: STFX finished 2nd in the women's UNB-STU interlock race today! Top X finishers Chisholm 2nd, Canning 10th, Benoit 11th. https://t.co/KU5qlv3MEp
— StFX Athletics (@StFXAthletics) October 16, 2021
Team results: LVL 19, STFX 53, DAL 85, SBR 109, UNB 153, UPEI 156 pic.twitter.com/bTFweSzV0j
Men's Race
The U SPORTS No. 2 ranked Laval Rouge et Or swept the top three spots in the third meet on the 2021 AUS men's cross country schedule, Saturday, in Fredericton.
Laval's Thomas Fafard (Repentigny, QC) won the eight-kilometre race, run at Fredericton's Kingswood Park, in a time of 24:38.
He beat teammates Jean-Simon Desgagnes (Quebec City, QC) and Jonathan Tedeschi (Montreal, QC) across the line.
Andrew Peverill (Lower Sackville, NS), of the Saint Mary's Huskies, was the top AUS runner, finishing fourth, just behind the Laval trio.
"I knew it was going to be a bit of a faster race and Thomas decided to push out from the start of the race, and I decided I might as well go with him," said Peverill, who led or ran second through much of the first half of the race. "I thought it was going well, but on the third lap, I started to feel it a little bit and ended up falling back, but it was a fun race."
Six visiting Rouge et Or runners finished in the top ten.
Jacob Benoit (Windsor, NS), of the StFX X-Men, was the second AUS runner across the line, finishing 7th overall, while Jared Howse (Red Deer, AB), of the host UNB REDS was ninth overall and 3rd among AUS competitors.
"I'm really happy with this result, especially after my workouts going into this week," said Howse. "I was a bit fatigued during the week, but I thought this went well and I had quite a bit of energy, even over the last lap."
"I liked the course," said Howse. "A lot of rolling hills, not many switchbacks, which was kind of nice. I liked the long stretches of hills, down into a flat. You could really get going on those."
The event was run under an almost constant rain and in cool temperatures.
Next up, the AUS Championship, in Moncton, on October 30th.
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Courtesy Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics
MXC: STFX finished 4th in the men's UNB-STU interlock race today! Top X finishers Benoit 8th, Staples 14th. https://t.co/1AOibZSvsL
— StFX Athletics (@StFXAthletics) October 16, 2021
Team results: LVL 17, DAL 74, UNB 84, STFX 94, SMU 112, UPEI 179