The final day of the USports Championship in Windsor yielded the first medals of the event for the Lions with both Thomas Nedow and Stephen Evans each picking up silver medals and All-Canadian accolades.
Nedow kicked things off with a new lifetime best of 15.98m in the shot put to finish in the silver medal position. The University of Guelph freshman produced three of the four farthest throws his career Saturday with his second and third best throws exceeding 15.85m. Nedow had looked to move across the 16 metre barrier in his fifth round effort, but it was narrowly ruled a fault.
Evans notched the University of Ottawa’s first ever men’s national medal over 600m in one of the most dramatic finishes of the championship. Coming off the final corner it was actually Carleton University’s Sebastian Saville in the lead with Evans dueling Guelph’s Thomas Land for second.
In the final 20 metres Saville began to tie up as Land jolted towards the finish with Evans following closely behind to finish in a time of 1:19.50. Steps behind was Saville who was edged off the podium by an agonizing one one hundredth of a second – crossing the line in 1:19.76. It was Saville’s second straight fourth place finish in the 600m final.
The final Lions result from the final day came in the penultimate event – the women’s 4x400m. The quartet representing the University of Ottawa was almost identical to the record setting 4x800m squad from the night before with Keili Shepherd replaced by OUA 60m finalist Stephanie Gould, who ran lead off.
The team was once again led by Maeliss Trapeau who produced a 56.0 second third leg to put the team in medal contention. Despite falling to fifth in the final standings, the quartet of Gould, Trapeau, Madison Clarke and Sophia Skorenky finished a time of 3:49.16 seconds, just off the school record of 3:48.58 set in 2012 on the banked track of New York City’s Armory. Using USports flat track conversion, Saturday’s performance would equate to 3:46.16.
South of the border at the NCAA Division II Championships, Ashlea Maddex placed 5th in the final of the 60m hurdles in a time of 8.38 seconds. For her placing, the Cal State Los Angeles freshmen earned her first All-American honours.
