It poured at the St Francis Xavier meet this Saturday, but the STU cross country team took it in stride. Both men’s and women’s teams secured seventh-place finishes but there were some standout performances by individual team members.
Men’s team captain Nathan Paton had nothing but good things to say about his teammates. This year’s group is STU’s largest men’s team since coach Scott Davis kick-started the program in 2007.
“Our fastest runner Paul Nozicka came in under 30 minutes. Overall the men did quite well with. Cody Mckay had a really strong second half of the race with an incredible surge at the end,” Paton said.
Newcomers have bolstered the men’s team with Nozicka, Andrew Vail, and Shane Farnham rounding out STU’s top three in the eight kilometre race.
The STU women also had a standout individual performance by co-captain Kyla Tanner, securing the 33rd individual spot for the team.
She pulled out a personal best of 21:30 despite the messy and challenging course. The team suffered from the loss of its usual second runner, Katie Cameron, due to injury.
The teams are looking to a week of hard running and a rest from competition.
“We’ve got a tough week of practice coming up but it will be nice to have a weekend off before we race at Acadia,” said Paton.
The Tommies will be back at it when Acadia hosts on October 6th. St Thomas will co-host an invitational race with UNB October 13th at Odell Park.
