The senior girls, including Middle Lake's Cara Dobrohoczki wearing #313, race rounds the first corner and heads down hill at the Carlton Trail Ski Club’s Dixon Hills just outside Humboldt during the provincial high school cross country championships on Oct. 16. (Becky Zimmer/northeastNOW Staff)

By Ben Tompkins

High School Sports

Lake Lenore medals once again at Cross-Country Provincials

Oct 22, 2021 | 11:14 AM

For the tenth time in a row at the Provincial High School Cross Country Championships, Lake Lenore School has won a medal.

The school received bronze in the 1A category at the event, which was held at Carlton Trail Ski Club’s Dixon Hills just outside Humboldt on Oct. 16.

Head coach of the Lake Lenore School Cross Country team Curtis Strueby told northeastnow that although bronze is actually their worst finish in the past ten years, considering his team was as small as only four members, he is incredibly impressed with the results.

“It’s an individual sport, but we also really stress the team element of it. The kids’ buy-in, they love the team aspect and the competition and when you have success, it kind of just builds on itself. Because they only take your top 4 scores, we needed all of them to perform and they did. They all ran personal best times by a lot.”

One of their members was Claire Moorman, a grade nine student who competed in her first-ever high school provincial championship and finished in sixth place for the intermediate girls, the best on the team.

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Claire Moorman (Becky Zimmer/northeastNOW Staff)

Strueby was sure to point out how incredible Moorman placed, especially at a young age, as well as the mass amount of potential she carries as such a driven individual.

“Claire is a good, well-rounded athlete who plays a lot of sports and is involved heavily in school sports. She’s incredibly driven and that came out at the event, she passed three people in the last 500 metres or so.”

“To come in sixth at her first provincial championship is an incredible accomplishment. She really wants to do well and everything she gets she definitely deserves, so power to her.”

Of course with the event being so close, it not only provided a sense of home and way less travel time for the Lake Lenore athletes, but it also gave them sort of a home-field advantage on a course that they’re way more familiar with.

“It was very nice,” said Strueby. “The kids had run on it a couple of times and they did know the course, which makes it an advantage for sure.”

Strueby wasn’t the only one who noticed the advantage as Brian Grest, District Athletic Director for the Horizon School Division told northeastnow that it was great for local kids to be participating in the event and made the results that much sweeter.

“It turned out to be perfect and we had beautiful weather. It’s great for our local runners to be running in an event like this, so close to home. It added hugely, any time you get locals winning at a local event, that’s just a huge bonus.”

Muenster and Wynyard also added to the local winners, finishing with silver in the 1A category and bronze in the 2A respectively, along with Middle Lake’s Cara Dobrohoczki, who finished sixth for the Senior Girls.

Muenster head coach Chad Hofmann told northeastnow although they have won the provincial championships before, that hasn’t been for quite a while and the previous three years to this; excluding 2020 due to it being cancelled by COVID, they had won bronze. Because of this, he is very proud of his team.

“We only had six kids eligible for provincials and they all made it and ran pretty well. It’s just exciting for the kids in our school to see that if you put some time into something and put some work in that you can get rewarded. I was just glad kids could compete again and be active in different sports. Obviously with last year cancelled, it was just nice to get back at it and seeing kids enjoy athletics.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @BenTompkins_8