The St. Tim's Thunder Junior and Senior Track and Field Teams have had a busy few weeks.

Although a smaller club compared to other high schools, continued strong performances by the athletes has led to fantastic results. Head Coach, Travis Cummings couldn't be more proud of the students' success and says they are still confirming the roster for the Alberta Summer Games being held in Grande Prairie on July 18th-22nd.

A look back at how both teams did over the past few weeks is outlined below.

On May 26th, the Senior High team showed solid results at the City Championship showcase at Foothills Stadium. Bronze medal performances by Mikenna Spademan in the Intermediate Girls Triple Jump and Josh Novak in the Senior Boys 800m set the tone for the high school crew. Both athletes had personal bests and Cummings, shares it was nice to their leadership. "We had really solid results at Hgh School City's and I think everyone had their best performances on that day, I can't really ask any more than that."

Other top finishers included:

  • Scott Delsing in the Intermediate Boys 3000m
  • Maggie Brolsma in the Intermediate Girls 3000m and 1500m
  • Eric Swedlo and Isaiah Springer in the Intermediate Boys 1500m and 800m 
  • Intermediate Girls 4x100m (Mikenna, Maggie, Kennedy Michalski, Natasha Le) relay team
  • Open Boys 4x400m (Eric, Scott, Isaiah, Josh) relay team
  • School records were set by Elijah Springer in the 400m and the boys 4x400m relay 

On June 11th, the Junior Thunder squad competed at the Calgary Separate School District City Championships at Glenmore Athletic Park and the team dominated the meet. There were many standout performances, says Cummings. "At Junior High City's we had 28 kids and then the kids cleaned up winning 22 medals. We had some really impressive results so I am quite excited about the high school crew with the grade 9s coming up next year; our high school team is going to be really strong. We were really strong this year, too, but the addition of the grade 9s coming up to grade 10 is going to be a huge boost for the team."

Some standout performances, Cummings noted, was the podium sweep by the grade 9 girls in two separate races. "Darci Peterson won gold, Emily Carvalho won silver and Grace Boston was bronze and they podium swept the 300 as well."

Strong, clean races by the relay teams were also seen and every team entered ended up medaling; which is a huge feat for the relatively small track program.

Cummings adds the athletes did extremely well when you consider they competed against approximately 20 other schools. "What they did was pretty impressive overall." 

"Grade 7 boys 4x100m relay team of Trenton Spademan, Ethan Clazie, Nick Hooper, and Liam Keyes won a bronze medal and our grade 9 Co-Ed 4x100m relay team of Darci Petersen, Emily Carvalho, Jacob Mate, and Liam McCullough also won a bronze medal. Our grade 8 Co-Ed 4x100m relay of Caleb Blough, Jonah Springer, Holly Moores, and Makenna Myatt won a silver medal after the 1st place team in their team was disqualified for an illegal exchange. but the top relay result came from our very strong Grade 9 Girls 4x100m relay team of Grace Boston, Carling Bremner, Miranda Hobbs, and Brianna Reis. The girls won their competition in very convincing fashion. Relay exchanges were very clean and fast for all of our athletes, showing the hard work they had put in to build some synergy with their teammates"

Jacob Mate dominated the grade 9 boys shot put, winning by a large margin and also placed 4th in the 800. Other medal performances on the day are as follows (in no particular order):

  • Liam McCullough, gold medal and dominating performance in grade 9 boys 800m
  • Bella Fauth, bronze medal in grade 8 girls long jump
  • Shae Jeffries, silver medal in the grade 8 girls long jump
  • Grace Boston, 3rd in the Grade 9 Girls 800m, 2nd in the 300m
  • Emily Carvalho, 2nd in the Grade 9 Girls 800m, 3rd in the 300m
  • Holly Moores, gold medal in the Grade 8 girls 800m, silver in the 300m
  • Makenna Myatt, silver medal in the grade 8 girls 800m
  • Sadie Kupery, bronze medal in the grade 9 girls discus
  • Trenton Spademan, dominating tape to tape win in grade 7 boys 800m
  • Brianna Reis, silver medals in the grade 9 girls long jump and 100m
  • Miranda Hobbs, blew the competition away in the grade 9 girls 200m, gold medal by a large margin
  • Podium sweep in the Grade 9 Girls 800m (Darci, Emily, Grace) and 300m (Darci, Grace, Emily), and a 1-2 finish in the grade 8 girls 800m (Holly, Makenna)

The fantastic results performed by both senior and junior high levels meant eleven athletes went on to compete this past weekend (June 15-17) at the CALTAF Track Classic at Foothills Stadium. Cummings, for now, is keeping results tight until the roster is released. "There were lots of PB’s, quite a few surprises; and some tough lessons learned from a few of our athletes. Roster information should be confirmed by tonight (June 20).

With the Alberta Summer Games being open zone and completely separate from the school, Coach Cummings, will continue to run practices for the qualifying athletes on Tuesday's and Thursday's at Mitford Park, 5 pm. "If there any other kids in Cochrane who don't have a coach they are welcome to come out to my practices." 

If any distance athletes are in need of help before Summer Games, Coach Cummings invites you to contact him at travis.cummings@cssd.ab.ca