If this was a horse race, a bet on Rob McDougall would not have resulted in large payoff.
By a country mile, the D.P. Todd Grade 12 student was the favourite Saturday in the 6.5-kilometre North Central zone boys cross-country championship at Otway Nordic Centre.
For two of the three laps, Jack Carrigan of South Peace made it interesting, and that was McDougall's cue to put the hammer down and leave everybody else in his tracks, just like he's done in every race this season.
On a cool and gloomy but precipitation-free morning, McDougall claimed zone bragging rights, covering the hilly course in 25 minutes 1.8 seconds.
"It was definitely a hard-fought race, I'd like to say I was pretty confident all the way through but I was pretty nervous getting up to the start line. Jack's a great runner and he was tough competition."
Carrigan was 20 seconds off McDougall's pace, finishing second in 25:22.20, followed by Sam Goodrich of College Heights (25:47.90) and Grade 8 runner Alex Nemethy of Nechako Valley (26:00.20).
McDougall didn't have much time to rest. On Sunday, his D.P. Todd Trojans soccer team started its quest for a second straight double-A zone title Sunday at Rotary Field (see other story). McDougall started running cross-country to complement his training for soccer.
"I liked it and kept working at it and I guess the hard work of trying to balance that with team sports has kind of brought up my athleticism," said McDougall. "I like this way better than track and field."
McDougall finished 21st at the provincial cross-country championships and is targeting a top-10 result at this year's B.C. finals Nov. 6 in Victoria.
As expected, Emma Balazs won the 4.5km girls race. The Grade 10 Kelly Road student finished in 18:16.40 to claim her first zone title, sharing the medal podium with Nechako Valley runners Hilary Desmarais (18:33.70) and Cierra Verduzco (18:34.00).
"This course has lots of ups and downs and I guess I'm pretty good at that because in the other races (Desmarais and Verduzco) were closer than that," said Balazs. "Around the start of second lap I started (to pull away). But I didn't know how fast they were coming at the end."
Balazs was in much better health Saturday than she was last year when she sick to her stomach and placed sixth the zone finals. She recovered sufficiently to place ninth at the provincial championships and said she'd be happy with any improvement over that placing.
"I'm hoping for better than ninth place," she said.
Nemethy, 13, has grown up with the sport as the oldest child in a family of runners and has been hovering near or on the cross-country podium all season. His fourth-place finish guaranteed him a spot in the Victoria race.
"I was hoping to get top-three but this is my first year and I'm going to provincials and that's just amazing," said Nemethy. "My dad (Nechako Valley coach Brian Nemethy) got me running Tuesday nights in the summer and we've done a whole bunch of work since then. As fast as I am now, I'm hoping to win provs by Grade 12. I'm going for top-25 this year."
A total of 69 girls and 52 boys entered the zone races.
South Peace of Dawson Creek and Nechako Valley of Vanderhoof were first and second respectively in the provincial boys team event, while Nechako Valley and College Heights topped the girls team standings. Those four teams qualified for the provincial team event, as did the top-15 individuals in the boys and girls zone races.
