CALGARY – With their streak of four consecutive Canada West titles snapped two weekends ago, the lady Dinos enter the CIS Track and Field Championships in the unfamiliar role of the underdog, while the University of Calgary men will go as far as their sprinters will take them.
Championship website: http://www.universitysport.ca/e/championships/track/2009
The women's track and field squad was denied a fifth straight Canada West banner at the conference championships in Regina, where they placed third. The host Cougars nearly capitalized on the golden opportunity, losing a heartbreaker to their provincial rivals, the Saskatchewan Huskies, in the last event of the weekend.
The Huskies and the Dinos have combined to win the past 13 Canada West banners, with Saskatchewan also nabbing five CIS banners to Calgary's one in the process.
With their sights now set on the CIS Championships, the Dinos will need their characteristic dominance on the track to be in top gear to have a realistic shot at Canadian supremacy.
Distance runner Heather Sim will lead the Dinos into Windsor with a Canada West track athlete of the year award in hand. Sim was rewarded after a double medal effort in Regina, winning gold in the 1500m event and silver in the 4x800 relay event. Sim also won silver at the 2008 CIS championships in the 4x800 relay.
Amonn Nelson earned a gold medal in both the 300m event as well as the 4x200 relay at Canada West, while also corralling two silvers in a very successful weekend for the young sprinter. Nelson should be a force yet again at nationals, where she is a defending gold medalist in the 300m and the 4x400 events on the CIS stage.
Holly Ratzlaff will look to finish her CIS career on top as she is completing her fifth year of eligibility with the Dinos. Ratzlaff will defend her gold medals in the 4x400 relay as well as the 600m event.
Out of Ontario, the host Windsor Lancers and the reigning CIS champions Guelph Gryphons look to be the teams to beat at the CIS meet. Guelph snapped the Lancers' four year OUA championship streak two weekends ago, and is led by OUA female track athlete of the year Lindsay Carson. Windsor, a perennial track and field power, sports the OUA female field athlete of the year in Noelle Montcalm.
On the men's side, third year sensation Sam Effah aims to continue his domination of the sprint category at the CIS level, where he is the reigning CIS Outstanding Athlete.
Effah is no stranger to individual accolades, as he captured his second consecutive Canada West track athlete of the year award after two gold medals in Regina. Along with a 2007-08 UC Athlete of the Year award and, most recently, the Fred Tees Award, adding to an already impressive stack of personal hardware.
Effah, along with Trent Ratzlaff, Mike Saisew, and Evan Kimick, leads a formidable track team for Calgary. They all need to put forward outstanding performances yet again in Windsor to help cover for a field program that is still slightly behind the competition.
Kimick was named the 2008-09 Canada West Student-Athlete of the Year, while Trent Ratzlaff earned both a gold and silver medal at Canada West.
A fourth place finish at Canada West may have exposed the Dinos' lack of depth in the field, where the conference champion Manitoba Bisons excelled. The Bisons, who won their second consecutive Canada West title, are solid in both the track and field events – depth which led them to a convincing 15.5 point victory over the second place Saskatchewan Huskies.
However, their big Canada West triumph might not be able to propel them to the CIS title, as the Bisons are looking up at an OUA force that might be too difficult to overtake.
The Windsor Lancers are ranked first in the country on the men's side, and own more than twice as many ranking points than the second place York Lions and third place Bisons.
Windsor has been close to untouchable in the OUA, winning an astounding 11 straight conference championships. The Lancers are led by OUA Most Valuable Male Performer Jamie Adjetey-Nelson, and OUA field events MVP Derek Watkins, who combined for six total medals on the conference level.
The 2008-09 CIS Championships get under way in Windsor, Ont., and will span over three days from March 12-14.
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