X-Women tracksters travel to Montreal

The X-Women track & field team travelled to Montreal this past weekend and competed in the15th annual McGill Team Challenge. The event featured some 650 athletes and was billed as the largest indoor meet in Canada.

The X-Women had runners competing in the 60 and 300m dashes, along with the 600, 1000, 1500 and 3000m runs and the 4x200m and 4x400m relay races. Jumpers competed in the high jump, long jump and triple jump while one X thrower competed in the shot put and weight throw events.

Eugenia Renderos was the lone StFX competitor in the 60m dash and she ran the preliminaries in a time of 8.30 seconds, in 17th spot but failed to advance to the finals. The fastest time in the final race was 7.59 seconds.

Renderos also competed in the 300m dash and was the first X-Woman across the line in 12th spot at 42.76. Teammate Heidi Stirling was 23rd with a time of 43.92. The 600m race featured six StFX competitors amongst a field of 38 runners. Joelle Marshall came in 13th position with a time of 1:39.23, while Celeste Black was 17th at 1:40.49. Katie Barnstead (1:44.32) placed 22nd, followed by Sara Deveau (1:44.32) in 23rd and Paula MacDonald (1:47.09) in 28th. Trina Kennedy did not finish the race for X.

In the 1000m race, Bre Langley placed 21st for StFX, running 3:11.68 while Paula MacDonald (3:16.11) was 24th. Six X-Women ran in the 1500m race that featured 61 competitors. Monika Preibischova placed a very respectable 5th in the race at 4:38.19 and Kelly MacDonald was not far behind in 8th spot at 4:40.38. Bre Langley (4:59.97) was 36th for X, followed by Erin MacNeil (5:01.25) in 37th, Helena Fiore (5:09.32) in 41st and Brittany Morris (5:24.19) in 51st.

In the 3000m Preibischova cracked the top three, running in third position with a time of 9:50.97 behind two Guelph runners. Kelly MacDonald also ran well in the 3000, coming in 5th spot at 10:00.41. Four more X-Women ran the race including Erin MacNeil (10:45.40) in 23rd, Helena Fiore (11:02.06) in 28th, Natalie Kannenberg (11:05.08) in 30th and Brittany Morris (11:15.78) in 35th.

The X-Women 4x200m relay team of Eugenia Renderos, Heidi Stirling, Jaclyn Phillips and Celeste Black ran a 1:50.03 race in 10th position. Western won the race in a time of 1:42.12, followed by Queen’s (1:43.68) and Sherbrooke (1:46.10). In the 4x400m relay race the X-Women were 7th, finishing in 4:19.39. Western (3:54.47) won top spot again followed by Guelph (3:57.04) and McGill (4:02.44). StFX 4x400m relay team members consisted of Katie Barnstead, Trina Kennedy, Sara Deveau and Joelle Marshall.

Switching gears to the jumping events, the X-Women had a pair of jumpers competing in the McGill meet. Rebecca Bell placed 9th in the high jump at 1.50m, while teammate Mairead Davidson was unable to post a jump height. In the long jump, Bell placed 16th overall with a 4.54m jump and Davidson was 20th at 4.41m. The same pair competed in the triple jump where Bell finished in 15th with a 9.96m finishing jump, while Davidson was 17th at 9.65m.

In the throwing events, Chantal Paris competed for StFX in both the shot put and 20lb weight throw. She placed 13th in the shot put with a throw of 9.51m and was 16th in the weight throw at 8.71m.

In the overall team standings the X-Women placed 11th in a field of 15 teams with 12 points. Guelph won the meet with 79 points, followed by Ottawa (53) and York (47).

Next on the indoor schedule for the track and field squad is a meet at Dalhousie University on Saturday, Feb. 6th.