Peacock Wins Cross Country Provincial Title

The Peacock cross country team put together a stellar performance at the SHSAA Provincial Championship in Saskatoon on Saturday.

The outstanding day across the board for the runners was capped off with the 3A provincial title as the Tornadoes came away with the lowest overall score among all the divisions.

“We were beyond happy,” said head coach Renee Verge. “We knew that we had some strong runners coming in and if everyone ran the way that they were capable of, we knew that the outcome was going to be awesome and that’s exactly what happened.

“There wasn’t one runner that underachieved this weekend.”

Going into the event, the Tornadoes prepared for the flatter course in Saskatoon and that focused training paid off for the team.

“We knew the course in Saskatoon was going to be flat, so we do less hills and way more speed work,” said Verge.

In total, five Peacock runners were able to capture top-ten finishes, including Libby Epoch, who brought home a bronze medal in senior girls with a time of 16:43.12, finishing 30 seconds behind the winner Shayna Uhryn from Saskatoon Tommy Douglas.

This was Epoch’s fourth straight year with a medal at provincials.

“To cap off being one of the top-three runners in your age group every year is a great way to go out,” said Verge. “She went out real hard after Saskatoon and Regina girls and battled hard and got a bronze.”

Hunter Viczko just missed the podium, finishing fourth in midget boys with a time of 15:27.39. He was just 11 seconds away from a podium finish.

“He’s a first year runner and we knew he would be in the hunt,” said Verge. “We sent him out with the fast runners and he hung out with the pack of three and battled for a fourth place finish, so that was very exciting for him.”

Emma Schaeffer came in fifth in the junior girls race; Kalen Roney picked up an eighth place finish in senior boys, while Emily Deobold was ninth in senior girls, she is a first-year senior.

“She’s got one more year with us next year, so it was very nice to see her finish in the top-ten,” stated Verge.

Peacock won the 3A classification by a large margin, topping Saskatoon’s Aden Bowman by 51 points. Peacock’s 20 points were the lowest by any school out of the four classifications, edging out St. Joseph High School by one point.

Story courtesy www.discovermoosejaw.com