Horrobin leads St. Clair College to provincial gold

Wallaceburg’s Victoria Horrobin led the St. College women’s cross-country team to a provincial title at the Ontario College Athletic Association (OCAA) championships on Saturday held at Shade’s Mills Conservation Area in Cambridge.

With the gold medal, Horrobin and her team will now advance to the Canadian championships.

Horrobin came in fourth against a field of 53 finishers over the six kilometre course in her best time of the season at 24:02. For her efforts Horrobin was named to the first-team all-Ontario team.

The Saints looked like a good team leading up to provincials, but they didn’t finish any better than third place in any of their meets this season. Along with Horrobin, her teammates Camryn Crawford was ninth, Wyoming’s Justine Abbott finished next for the Saints in 16th position with a time of 26:21 while teammate Melody Knight was chosen as the Fair Play Award recipient and was the final counting runner in 19th position stopping her clock at 26:29. The other finishers for the St. Clair women were Kendra Bell (24th) and Victoria Skoyles (32nd).

The St. Clair women have qualified for the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association national championships being hosted by Dalhousie Agricultural Campus (Truro, NS) on Nov. 11.

The men’s race was eight kilometres and featured 80 runners. Horrobin’s brothers also completed for St. Clair. Michael Horrobin 28th place, while Nicholas Horrobin finished 33rd overall.

The Horrobin legacy at St. Clair is strong, as older sister Beth Horrobin was a standout runner for the Saints.

This was St. Clair’s first team gold medal since 2013 and the seventh in school history.