Lakers Cross Country team off to the races

The first three years of the Nipissing Lakers Varsity XC program proved to be a revolving door of athletes, with only very few returnees from year one to two, and only 2 returning athletes last year from the 2005 campaign.

The 2007 season starts with high hopes for two reasons in particular.

The first is the list of returning “veteran” harriers including top performers and captains Paulo Carvalho and Carly Drake who are fit and ready to compete hard this year.

Backing them as hard working mentors are Rory Currie, Andrew Hopkins, Mike Lefebvre and the always-energetic Andrew Bubar who has resurfaced after running for the Lakers squad in its rookie year.

On the women’s side, Celynn Marceau returns for her second season to help Drake improve on their 2006 results.

The second is the introduction of the new physical education program at Nipissing that has helped bring athletic students to our the campus.

On the men’s side we have the largest group of prospective athletes in which nine rookies will be competing to secure a spot on the team. The Lakers’ hopes lie strongly with the likes of Evan Bayer (Manitoulin), Kyle Ego (Hamilton), Kevin Gallagher (Everett), Josh Mosco (Renfrew), Ryan Lahti (Little Britain) and Curtis Brennan (Barrie).

The women’s team, although much smaller, consists of some very talented newcomers.

Of note is former Windsor Lancer turned Nipissing Education student, Katie Hicks and Ashleigh Bowins of Brampton. Bowins brings solid road racing credentials to the team and the coaching staff will be looking to both of them to be catalysts for the Lady Lakers.

They will also be joined by Taralynn Ray (Lindsay), Marina Demarco (North Bay) and Haleigh Reaburn of Sundridge.

The men’s and women’s squads aim to improve on their respective 14th and 15th place finishes from the 2006 OUA championships head coach Tim Uuksulainen believes that not only are top 12 finishes in 2007 possible, but breaking the top 10 in the OUA may be in the near future for this developing program.

Submitted to BayToday.ca