Athletes from St. Paul Regional High School were greeted by community members, family and friends in the early morning hours on Sunday, as a bus filled with track and field athletes arrived back at the school.
Just hours before, while in Calgary, the team was celebrating its provincial championship win. On Saturday, the school took home the Alberta Schools Athletic Association (ASAA) 3A track and field championship after some tough competition in extreme weather conditions in southern Alberta.
According to coach Hank Smid, the team went into the competition knowing there was a possibility it could win the championship if all the athletes performed well.
“We had 41 events that were competing,” explained Smid, Monday morning. The coach was still clearly excited for his student athletes. He admits that when coaches asked, some of the students were surprised by the provincial win.
“You need to have everybody perform well," said Hank, adding, “You have to play the game.” Coaches worked hard to get students to buy in to the notion that they could beat the much larger schools in their division.
The majority of the top schools in the 3A category have double the number of students as St. Paul Regional, which means there are fewer athletes to pull from. Having a solid number of athletes move on to provincials from zones gave the team hope.
“This doesn’t come along very often, so let’s take advantage of it," said Smid.
In the end, the school would bring home five individual medals, including Brooklyn Riopel's bronze medal in the 4x400m relay. Riopel was part of a zone team in her event.
“She was on a very fast team," said Smid, adding, she held her own and competed very well.
Alanna Mounce won three para medals. She had an outstanding provincial championship, said Smid.
Taylor Hebert was the school's best finisher, taking silver in long jump and setting herself a new personal best.
Smid says athletes had to battle through some wet and cold weather on Friday, which was certainly a challenge. But, coaches reminded the students that everyone was in the same situation.
Thankfully, the school had a tent to keep dry, and they tracked down a space heater to keep athletes warm.
“It really helped our kids out," said Smid.
When it came time to tally up the points and name the winners in each category, Smid says officials had to do a recount in the points and confirm things with team managers.
"There was a bit of dramatics going on." Officials wanted to get things right before announcing the winning school. At that point, the Regional High School athletes were convinced they had come in second place, so when the announcement was made that they had won, students were obviously excited.
Coming in just behind St. Paul Regional High School (239.25 points) was Cochrane High with 232.50 points.
St. Paul Regional High School won its first every track and field provincial title exactly 10 years ago in 2009. This is the fourth ever provincial championship the school wins within its athletics program. Smid says he is proud of what the coaches at Regional have been able to accomplish in the past decade.
“I'm really proud of our athletic program.”
Athletes who competed at provincials include: Taylor Hebert, Denver Graling, Taylor Fedoruk, Georgia Doonanco, Jessica Brousseau, Milla Boisvert, Georgia Sallstrom, Brooklyn Riopel, Shelby Bailey, Alanna Mounce, Matheo Martin, Daniel Hebert, Gideon Adebayo, Kyler Tichkowsky, Dustin Dubrule, Javar James, Owen Breast, Ben Fodchuk, and Kurtis Labant.
Lisa Starosielski (coach), Hank Smid (coach), Brandon Strocki (coach), Rod Hebert (bus driver), and Tanya Hebert (coach) travelled with the team to the provincial competition.
Smid says he wants the student athletes to understand that this win is a big deal, and that they are capable of achieving anything they set their mind to.
“This is truly something special.”
