The top half of our countdown continues with number five, Shona McCulloch of Longfields Davidson Heights Secondary School. The Barrhaven native was a dominate force during her four year high school career, twice capturing the provincial title and picking up a bronze as good measure.
Undefeated all four years at the city level, McCulloch captured her first gold medal in quite dramatic fashion at the 2013 Championship in Sudbury. McCulloch quickly surged to the front of the wet and muddy course, running with a pack of four other pre-race favourites through the first half of the three kilometre course. Near the halfway mark, Shona and Kylee Raftis of Bishop Strachan pulled away, running stride for stride right to the finish line. A surge in the final meters gave McCulloch the gold even as the pair of runners shared the same finishing time.
McCulloch would make it back to back titles a year later in Waterloo winning the four-kilometre race in 14 minutes and 43.5 seconds. Despite the narrow five second margin of victory, Coach Kirk Dillabaugh said the race was never really in question. “Shona won the junior girls’ race about a mile into it,” Dillabaugh told the Ottawa Sports Page at the time. “She was the favourite going in and a little nervous. Then she found herself alone for most of the race.”
Unfortunately for McCulloch, the quest for a three peat ended about 600 metres from the finish line of the senior girls race the following season. The grade 11 student, who had yet to be defeated in her high school cross country career, had been in a tight battle with eventual champion Maddie Ghazarian, but unfortunately encountered some difficulties and collapsed in the final kilometre of the race and would not finish.
A determined McCulloch returned a year later primed for another run for gold. Coming off a nearly 50 second victory over training partner Mei Mei Weston to capture the city title, McCulloch was looking in top form. Again, the Longfields Davidson student found herself at the front of the pack at the end of the five-kilometre race, this time running side by side with Havergal’s Martha MacDonald. However, McCulloch once more ran into difficulties in the home stretch and stumbled 150 metres from the finish line. With next to nothing left in the tank, the two time champion willed her way to the line, but was nipped just before crossing and settled for bronze.
Following graduation, Shona accepted a scholarship to the University of Washington to run for the Huskies. After red-shirting her freshman year, she has helped Washington qualify for back-to-back NCAA Championships in cross country, where the Huskies have finished 9th and 11th respectively. In addition to her contributions to the cross country program, McCulloch has also ran well on the track, taking up the 3000 metre steeplechase where she was an NCAA West Regional qualifier in 2019 and has posted the seventh fastest time in school history.