Shaneista Haye won the women’s high jump event on Saturday, clearing 1.66m in an event that featured only Gryphon athletes. Photo by Rashaad Bhamjee.
Count two more athletes that have already qualified for the CIS national championships, just three weeks into the season.
It was only a small meet, but yet, also another opportunity for the Guelph Gryphons track and field team to showcase their talent as the group traveled to York University for the Christmas Open on Saturday.
The meet predominantly featured Gryphons and York Lions athletes, as well as a smattering of individuals from other universities and a few club members. Western and Windsor also hosted meets on the same day, diluting the fields significantly. In taking one look at the scoreboard at York, it was clear which group was the dominant force of the event as the Gryphon men’s and women’s teams, ranked third and fourth in the country, respectively, performed admirably in a vast array of events.
“It was a useful meet in terms of specific preparation as we head into our main competitive season in January,” said head coach Dave Scott-Thomas. “We had a few really good things come out of it. It was a chance for a lot of our rookies to get in their first varsity competition without a lot of stress.”
While the low level of stress in the events was a positive experience for Gryphon rookies, Scott-Thomas was, however, a little frustrated about the lack of real competition at York, given that two other meets were taking place on the same day.
“It always helps to have someone else pushing you,” he said. “If you look at the field in men’s and women’s high jump, we were 100 per cent of the field.”
Two Gryphons in particular had a particularly strong day as high jumper Cornell Haynes and sprinter Sarah Peirce in the women’s 60m race, both exceeded the CIS standard, automatically qualifying them for the national championships in March. Haynes won the men’s high jump event, clearing 2.05m, a meet record. Peirce blazed to victory in the women’s 60m final in a time of 7.60 seconds and also won the women’s 200m final. Haynes and Peirce join weight thrower Dustin McCrank and shot putter Tim Hendry as Gryphon athletes who have already qualified for the national championships.
“I think we’ll probably have between 30 and 35 athletes at [nationals] at season’s end,” said Scott-Thomas. “To get standard is a pretty big deal and probably 15 to 20 of our athletes will have hit the standard (by March).”
The remaining Gryphon qualifiers will come from the top 12 national rankings and the OUA winners and runners up in each event.
Other Gryphon winners on Saturday were Lydia Frost (women’s 1500m), Corinne Smith (women’s 800m), Matt MacDonald (men’s 800m), Shaneista Haye (women’s high jump), Melissa Radu (women’s pole vault) and Nigel Wray, who won both the men’s 1500m and 3000m events.
Wray was also a second team All-Canadian in cross-country and was the first of Scott-Thomas’s athletes to make the change over from cross-country to track and field after a very busy outdoor fall season. In January, many other Gryphon cross-country runners will start competing in track and field events as well.
The Gryphons track and field teams, with a full slate of athletes, will return to action on Jan. 15-16 to compete in the Can AM Event in Windsor. With the competitive portion of the season about to get underway, Scott-Thomas has high expectations.
“We’re very good teams,” he said. “I think we had the best recruiting class in Canada this year – in terms of both talent and attitude. I think both our men’s and women’s teams will be in the hunt for both OUA and CIS titles this year.”