To The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—With upwards of 160 schools involved, and considering the number of OFSSA champions and national-ranked athletes from the area, OFSSA’s West Region may be the toughest from which to qualify. Certainly, this year’s representatives from Haldimand are unlikely to argue the point.
Suspense was high at the Novice Girls high jump, with seven girls still in the competition at 1.45m, a height that could have won at several other regions. One of the seven was Jalyn Taylor of Dunnville Secondary School.
When only three of the seven girls cleared that height, it set the stage for the dreaded jump-off because the four athletes that missed at 1.45m were all tied for the fourth qualifying spot, each having no misses.
The bar was re-set at 1.45m, the height the athletes missed, and the height would then be adjusted if more than one athlete succeeded (bar is raised) or if all remaining athletes failed (bar is lowered).
All four missed the first attempt at 1.45m, so the bar was lowered to 1.4m, which everyone made. For the second attempt at 1.45m, two athletes missed, leaving Taylor and Laura van Nes from Clinton to battle it out. At 1.48m, only van Nes, with the advantage of an extra four or five inches of leg, was successful and qualified for OFSSA, putting Taylor in fifth place.
Cayuga’s Caitlyn Thompson also discovered that track and field can produce heartbreak, as she had an uncharacteristic poor start in the Junior Girls 80m hurdle final, coming last out of the blocks and taking an extra step to the first hurdle. In catch-up mode she passed three of the other finalists before running out of track, missing the final qualifying spot by three-hundredths of a second. She did manage to qualify in triple jump, with a first-round effort of 10.49m for third place.
Also qualifying in triple jump was Mc- Kinnon Park’s Emma Rabbat, who likewise qualified with her first-round jump of 10.12m in Novice Girls.
The final qualifier from Haldimand was Gaven Mathieson, who dipped under 10-minutes in the 3,000m for the first time, establishing a new Personal Record of 9:55.82. This completes the cycle for him, as he qualified for the first OFSAA Championships of the year, cross-country, when he and Thompson were the only qualifiers from Haldimand to that competition.
The OFSSA Track and Field Championships are being held at York University next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
The conclusion of school competition signals the start of summer club competition, the first one planned being the Royal Canadian Legion District B Championships and Queen’s Jubilee Celebration on June 26 at Mohawk Sports Park in Hamilton.
