It's easy to see Laurentian Voyageurs' cross-country head coach Darren Jermyn as far more of a "glass half full" than "glass half empty" type of guy.
If so, the local man who guided the 2024 edition of the L.U. squad into the recent OUA Championships in North Bay (Callander, ON - to be specific) will certainly have some positives to cling to for squads that will undergo some key turnover next fall.
While the women's team is likely going to graduate their top two runners in Angela Mozzon (42nd - 31:32) and Kristen Mrozewski (52nd - 32:02) as well as fifth year veteran Sarah Booth (70th - 33:32) from Peterborough, they will have some local pieces to build around.
Rounding out the Laurentian counters (fastest five L.U. runners) were Abby Lanteigne (Lockerby Composite - 61st - 32:47 - third year kinesiology) and rookie Georgia Lepage (St Benedict - 64th - 33:01 - first year kinesiology).
The middle of three children in the family, Lanteigne is a particularly intetesting story, never having captured an individual SDSSAA cross-country title and committing to varsity sport at university well after the start of her studies.
"In my second year at Laurentian, I thought maybe I want to join the team," said Lanteigne, who was second to Avery Sutherland as a junior in 2019 in her best finish at the SDSSAA championships.
"I started in the summer and even with the twenty minute warm-up, I was dying. He (coach Jermyn) said to hang in there and keep going. I was able to run around a 22-minute five km at the beginning of the year."
Chatting with Lanteigne and a few others in their last practice before provincials, it's clear why the 20 year old long-time Sudbury Lady Wolves talent would walk away pleased with the end of her current fall season.
"I think our team has a good chance of doing decently well, but I am nervous, from my own personal point of view," admitted Lanteigne. "Georgia and I are somewhat the same pace so I will try and stick with her."
"As far as other teams go, I just try and stick with different groups. I try and go group to group to get forward."
Displacers for Laurentian included Maeve Blake (82nd - 34:33) and Charlotte Grenier (84th -34:27) as the Laurentian women finished ninth with 286 points, exactly the same placement as 2023 but just six points back of the Brock Badgers.
The Laurentian men, meanwhile, dropped one spot (from 10th to 11th) but will enter next fall without their "low stick", as coach Jermyn referred to North Bay native Keon Wallingford.
For as much as the 23 year old fell short of the top-twenty finish he would have liked (Wallingford placed 32nd in a time of 26:00), he was still well ahead of a balanced crew of teammates, all of whom can return but all of whom also have some work ahead to come close to top-30 territory.
Still, we have seen jumps in the past from runners with very similar backgrounds to the likes of Brandon Radey (50th - 26:56 - 3rd year nursing), Patrick Leroux (64th - 27:39 - 4th year SPED), Owen Roney (74th - 27:52 - 2nd year SPAD) and Travis Annett (86th - 28:42 - 3rd year Mining Engineering), the four remaining male counters for Laurentian at the OUA Championships.
Throw in the fact that both displacers - T.J. Green (98th - 30:57) and Ala Wilkin (99th - 30:58) - are also OUA rookies and one can hope for some natural progression in the ranks - just not from Wallingford, who now contemplates the next phase of his athletic career.
"I definitely want to run on the track a little bit more after university - just to see how fast I can get," he stated. "And I would like to go to some of the longer distances at some point, a half and full marathon. You kind of just have to."
As for the close of his cross-country career (barring participation in the Canadian Open Championships and such), Wallingford certainly has garnered a very solid understanding of the make or break variables to a sport where relatively few seconds can make a difference of ten spots or more at the finish line.
"For me, I'm going to hurt with 2km to go, no matter what," he suggested at his final practice with the team. "So it's how much I am willing to push myself to the limit, the last little bit, to get those extra spots."
It's a concept that coach Jermyn instills in his crew almost from their very entry to the program.
"Even though it's 8km, we don't just want them running 8km, we want them racing 8km," he said. "There's a big difference. They need to race within their group. If each runner gets three extra spots, that's critical. We approach the race as a team and do not even talk about individual results."
It's a team that is sure to look differently next fall.
Jermyn noted that the 2024-2025 recruiting class consisted of 13 new athletes for the cross-country and indoor track teams at Laurentian, bumping the numbers to 10/10 this fall - but with an eye on raising that to 15/15 come September of 2025.
