By Jeff D'Andrea

St. Mary’s sets school best with 11 provincial gold

Jun 7, 2012 | 7:11 AM

At this weekend’s SHSAA Track and Field Provincials in Saskatoon, St. Mary high school’s track team had their best performance ever, capturing a school-high of 11 gold medals.

What’s even scarier is that the majority of those gold winners and close to 40 athletes St. Mary sent to provincials are eligible to return next year.

St. Mary head coach Kelly Prins said he was very happy not only with his team’s impressive provincials performance, but also its development throughout the season.

“This year they really came together as a group and showed support for each other,” said Prins.

“They’re willing to put in early mornings and after school and do whatever it takes.That work ethic just came through this year and we had this amazing season.”

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From those 11 gold medals, senior standout Katelyn Lehner accounted for five of those and won the aggregate and athlete of the meet awards. Lehner scored gold in all four of her individual events: 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles and long jump, and anchored the senior girls 4x100m relay team to a first place finish.

Prins said Lehner, a Grade 11 who can compete at the senior level next year as well, had one of the best all-time SHSAA provincial performances.

“Katelyn’s performance was unbelievable,” said Prins. “This is a kid who’s probably one of the nicest kids you’re ever going to meet. She’s a phenomenal singer, extremely mature for her age and (has) one of the best work ethics I’ve ever seen in my coaching.

“She’s the real deal in all facets, not only just in track, but a good all-around person as well.”

St. Mary also set another school-first, finishing with golds in the 100m and long jump events at both the senior girls and junior girls levels, as Lehner and junior Abenniel Browne teamed up to accomplish that.

Lauren Glynn won senior girls discus and Keegan Kjargaard also finished with a gold in junior boys pole vault.

Prins feels that school best total of 11 could have actually been even greater, as big as 15 had everything gone right for the team on the weekend.

Midget Connor Johnson, who Prins identified as the best male athlete on his team, broke his arm after falling during warm ups and had to withdraw from the meet.

Johnson set the record at districts for midget boys 100m hurdles with 14.30 time last week, and also finished first in the 200m and long jump. Prins believes a healthy Johnson could have added a few more gold medals, despite coming basically out of nowhere before he first came to St. Mary’s last year.

“He’s a real story. This kid didn’t do any sports in his life, he just came out to track. Just an outstanding work ethic, another really good kid, amazing kid,” said Prins. “He went from absolutely nothing, now he’s the best hurdler in the province. He was literally a quarter of a second ahead of everybody in the field after the heats and nearly broke the provincial record.”

“That’s a real find, we didn’t really know about him because he didn’t do anything before he came here last year.”

jdandrea@panow.com

@jeff_dandrea