The quantity is lacking but the quality is exceptional.
That bodes well for the Zone 8 track and field team that will represent the northeast corner of the province at the B.C. Summer Games, July 17-20 in Nanaimo. Five males and 12 females qualified for team, based on their results at the Spruce Capital meet last weekend at Masich Place Stadium.
"This is definitely the smallest team Zone 8 has sent to Summer Games," said Zone 8 co-coach Corine Masich. "We usually send over 30, but this year there weren't that many who came out for the Spruce Capital meet, which were used for Summer Games trials. It might be a small team but we have some fairly good contenders, we had quite a few meet records set at the Spruce Capital meet."
The Games track and field competition is open to athletes born in either 1999 or 2000.
Shelby Jansen, a 100m/200m specialist, 100m/200m hurdler and 300m runner Lindsay King, and pole vaulter/triple jumper Kendel Rogers, who all compete for the Prince George Track and Field Club, are solid bets to win medals at the Summer Games.
The Zone 8 team also includes sprinter/long jumper Jynessa Kaulback of Athletics North. Amanda Heinze of PGTFC qualified in all four throwing events but is allowed to compete in just three in Nanaimo and chose hammer throw, javelin and discus. Maria Newton of PGTFC will compete in steeplechase.
Mid-distance runners Olivia Baptiste and Avery Drew, both of Quesnel, will join forces with Jansen and King to form a formidable 4X400m relay team.
Josh Hoff (hammer throw, javelin) is the lone male Prince George athlete on the Summer Games list. Samuel Sommerfeld qualified in shot put but will attend a military band camp instead of going to Nanaimo. Joshua Muir, Braedon Smith and Nicholas Berlinguette, all of Quesnel, will compete in the sprints, hurdles and long jump. Cole Stone of Quesnel is entered in the javelin and hammer toss.
Quesnel athletes Ashley Young, Hailey Doucette, Hannah Doucette, Ashley Holyk also made the team, as did sprinter Ashley Clarke of 100 Mile House.
Masich said the timing of the Spruce Capital meet, a week after the high school provincial meet in Langley and two weeks after the North Central zone meet in Prince George, taxed the travel budgets of many of the athletes, which contributed to a low turnout. Only 140 athletes attended the Spruce Capital meet, which was significantly more than last year, but lacked any athletes from Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Bella Coola and Williams Lake.
Masich said most athletes in the smaller cities of Zone 8 are not affiliated with track and field clubs and depend on their school programs to set up their participation in meets. With the teachers' job action the past month having deteriorated into a full strike, the climate for extracurricular activities in the schools is stormy at best and Masich said that also might have also been a contributing factor.
"We had three meets in a row and we didn't have that many coming out for Spruce Capital and I think a lot of the unrest in the schools had something to do with that," she said. "Perhaps we should use the high school zone championships as the qualifier."
Masich, a phys-ed teacher at College Heights secondary school, brought the club's equipment to her school for a day of instruction in the throwing events a few weeks ago and had two boys excel in the demonstration. She wishes now she would have asked them to enter the Spruce Capital meet. She said they might have qualified for the Summer Games.
"I had a boy who picked up the javelin right away and was throwing it quite nicely and another one who was good at throwing the hammer and I'm kicking myself now that I didn't phone their parents," said Masich. "Because it's not being done in high school phys-ed classes anymore, how do they know."
Masich will share the Summer Games coaching duties with her husband Bill. Steph Gouin of Athletics North will help coach the Zone 7 team (northwestern B.C.) at the Summer Games.
