By: Michael Bennett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Ridgetown Independent News

At the start of track practices in the spring, Alex Crow didn’t really know what events to try.

He knew he didn’t like running, so that left the field events for the Grade 9er from Ridgetown to consider in his first season at Chatham-Kent Secondary School.

At one practice, he saw some of the senior Golden Hawks throwing the javelin – an event which is not offered at the elementary school level when he attended Ridgetown District Gr. 7-8.

“I thought that looked pretty cool, so I tried it … and stuck with it,” Crow said.

Three short months later, Crow is the fifth-best novice boy javelin thrower in all of Ontario.

Crow threw 42.53 metres on his first attempt, his best of six throws, to finish fifth at the OFSAA track and field championships at the Niagara Olympic Track in St. Catharines on June 7.

He was one of three Ridgetown-area athletes – all of whom attend CKSS – who competed at the provincial high school championships.

Lia Hillman, of McKay’s Corners, finished eighth in the junior girls 200 metres while Gracie VanderGriendt, of Rondeau, placed 15th in the open girls 2,000-metre steeplechase.

While Crow admitted he was nervous on his first throw, that turned out to be his best of the day.

He followed with a 40.36 on his second throw and faulted on his third to advance to the final eight in fifth position.

Crow threw 41.94, 39.20 and 39.92 in the final round as he stayed in fifth place.

Koji Miller, of Holy Trinity in Courtice, won the gold at 52.82, while Crow was only 1.44 metres shy of a bronze medal, which was claimed by Owen Neitzel, of Kincardine, who finished third at 43.97 metres, while Brayden Thompson, of Robert T. Hall in Caledon East, was fourth at 43.82.

Crow finished third a week earlier at West Regionals in Cambridge with a personal-best 44.25 metres, just 48 centimetres shy of Neitzel’s goal.

“If I had pb’d, I would have medalled,” Crow said of his OFSAA competition. “It wasn’t a good throwing day, I couldn’t put it all together.”

“I had the one big throw and a few all right ones,” he said.

Still, to finish fifth in Ontario in an event he only picked up in March is quite an accomplishment.

Crow won LKSSAA at 41.22 metres and placed third at SWOSSAA at 37.93.

He also competed in discus, where he finished fourth at LKSSAA at 31.44 metres, fifth at SWOSSAA at 33.76 metres and ninth at West Regionals at 32.58 metres.

Crow credits his baseball days for his success in the javelin and discus – but he never considered the shot put as a third throwing event.

“Shot seems like more power, I probably wouldn’t be the best at it,” he admitted. “The javelin and discus are more technical.”

Crow said he wants to add a third event next season.

“I’m not a runner, but I’m looking at triple jump,” Crow said.

Hillman, a Grade 10 CKSS student, finished eighth in the junior girls’ 200-metres in 25.85 seconds, her third fastest time of the competitive season.

She was seventh fastest in the heats at 26.13 seconds.

Although she was faster in the final, she wasn’t happy with her result or time.

“It wasn’t a good run for me,” she said.

It was the first time she started in the eighth lane in her two years at CKSS, as she is more accustomed to running in the inside lanes with her fast qualifying times and placings.

Runners in the outside eighth lane start ahead of the rest of the field, “and it’s hard to gauge where everyone else is behind you, so you have no idea on pacing,” she said.

Hillman, however, was pleased to learn she was only the second female runner from CKSS to ever run in an OFSAA 200-meter final, the first since Wendy Eagleson in 1979.

She won LKSSAA in 26.86 seconds and SWOSSAA in 25.62 before running her season best 25.23 seconds to finish second at West Regionals.

It was Hillman’s second year in a row running at OFSAA as she was part of the novice girls 4×100 fourth-place relay team at York University, where they finished .01th of a second behind the bronze-medal-winning Toronto Malvern.

Hillman also competed in the 100 and 400 metres this spring.

She advanced to the West Regionals in the 100 metres, where she finished seventh in 12.98 seconds, after finishing third at SWOSSAA in 12.96 seconds and winning at LKSSAA in 12.90. Hillman decided to drop the 400 metres after finishing fifth at SWOSSAA and second at LKSSAA.

Hillman is competing this summer with the Border City club team in Windsor, where she will run the 100, 200 and 400 metres.

Her times in the 100 and 200 this spring qualified Hillman for the new Canadian Track and Field League trials in Ottawa at the end of the month, and, if successful, she will compete against top runners in her age group from across Ontario at summer meets.

Hillman received more accolades at the CKSS athletic banquet last Wednesday, when she was named the school’s Junior Female Athlete of the Year, and was also a key player on the Golden Hawks hockey and soccer teams.

VanderGrient competed in her third straight OFSAA but in a new event as the first-year senior took up the open girls 2,000-metre steeplechase.

The Grade 11 CKSS student ran a 7:32.78 to finish 15th out of the 24 starters in Thursday’s preliminary race at OFSAA, falling short of advancing to the final by three positions.

Eleanor Voykin, of Toronto Birchmount Park, won the gold the next day in 6:46.60.

“I was a bit disappointed,” VanderGriendt admitted. “I went into the race trying to be positive but got out there and just felt a bit flat.”

“There were some crazy fast girls running crazy fast times, girls committed to university,” she said. “I felt grateful to be there with them.”

“And it’s made me pretty determined to make it to the final next year,” VanderGriendt said.

She finished third in all three pre-OFSAA meets, running 7:18.07 at West Regionals, 7:26.03 at SWOSSAA, and 7:56.87 at LKSSAA.

VanderGriendt also ran the 3,000 metres this season as she placed 11th at West Regionals, fifth at SWOSSAA and third at LKSSAA.

She dropped the 800 and 1,500 to concentrate on the steeplechase and 3,000 this year, even though she made it to OFSAA in the 1,500 and 3,000 in both novice and junior years, with a 13th in the junior girls 3,000 last year, her highest placing.

VanderGriendt will run with the Windsor Legion track club this summer, mainly competing in the 1,500 and 3,000, while running the steeplechase when it’s available, such as at the Athletics Ontario provincial championships.

The 16-year-old runner also hopes to keep her OFSAA streak intact in Grade 12, as she has competed in the provincial cross-country and track championships for the past three years.

“I’d love to make it there every season; that would be incredible for sure,” VanderGriendt said.

An athlete from the Blenheim area made local OFSAA history.

Noah VanNeck, a Grade 10 CKSS student from Cedar Springs, won the junior boys shot put and discus, duplicating his sweep as a novice a year earlier, to become the first male athlete from Chatham-Kent ever to win four OFSAA gold medals – and he did it in his first two years.

VanNeck was named CKSS’s Junior Male Athlete of the Year.

Madeline Verbeek, of Blenheim, finished fourth in the junior girls 300-metre hurdles and seventh in the 400-metres – the latter, which she won at LKSSAA when Hillman finished second.