MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- With the way things went for South Central track and field athletes in the lead-up to the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association provincial championship, it stood to reason there could be all sorts of success for competitors from Moose Jaw and area.
As it tuns out, that’s exactly how things went.
South Central athletes claimed a total of 17 medals at the event on Friday and Saturday at the Gordie Howe Athletic Complex in Saskatoon, with the top performances including a pair of double gold medalists.
Cornerstone Christian School’s Ademide Adewumi continued her season-long success by repeating her feat from a year earlier, claiming gold in both the junior girls shot put and discus.
Ademide -- the reigning Canadian Legion national bronze medalist in the shot put -- had an effort of 11.31 metres in her specialty event to claim gold by nearly two metres and was just as dominant in the discus with a 34.30-metre effort.
Peacock’s Nikolina Kapovic and Central’s Katy Rogers continued their dominance of the senior girls 1,500 metres and 3,000 metres, with Kapovic claming gold in both distances -- the opposite of last season, when Rogers was able to edge Kapovic in both junior girls races.
Kapovic ran 10:11.80 to finish just over a second ahead of Rogers in the 1,500, and then crossed the line in 4:44.76 in the 3,000, seven seconds ahead of Rogers.
Rogers would go on to become the only triple medalist for South Central when she won the 800 metres in a time of 2:20.16, giving her a gold and two silver at the meet.
Vanier’s Zayden Anderson found himself in an absolute battle in the junior boys 100m hurdles, and it would be a battle he’d win by the closest of margins to claim gold. After finishing second to Rosetown’s Dami Igbekoyi in qualifying, Anderson would nip Igbekoyi at the line in the final, finishing in 14.09 to Igbekoyi’s 14.10.
Anderson then ran a 11.66 in the 100m final to finish third, five hundreds of a second off silver.
Central’s Reid Weiss emerged as one to watch in the future with his showing in the intermediate boys division, as he won the 100m hurdles in a time of 14.65 and then had a pair of close fourth place finishes in the triple jump and 100m, finishing .01 back of a medal in the latter.
Gravelbourg’s Madeleine Simonsen finished in a four-way tie for first at 1.50 metres in the junior girls high jump but would claim gold thanks to having fewer misses in the lead-up to the championship-deciding height.
Mossbank’s Chase Peterson emerged as the top junior boys multi-discipline competitor, and in style at that, as he claimed the tetrathlon gold medal with 2,309 points. Peterson would take top spot in the 100m, 800m and long jump in addition to finishing second in the shot put.
Among the silver medalists on the weekend were Vanier’s Wyatt Behiel (senior boys discus, 40.26m), Central’s Blake Maltais (junior girls triple jump, 10.86m), Central Butte’s J.J. Martel (intermedaite boys shot put, 13.03 metres) and Coronach’s Klay Elder (intermediate boys javelin, 47.14 metres). Peacock’s Cambria Stuehler won bronze in the intermediate girls 100m in a time of 13.55.
