VanNeck wins two golds at OFSAA

Noah VanNeck likely just put together one of the best athletic years for any Chatham-Kent high school freshman athlete.

A Grade 9 student at Chatham-Kent Secondary School, VanNeck capped his year off with two gold medals at the OFSAA track and field meet held in Toronto on Saturday, winning the novice boys shot put and discus.

The Cedar Springs native threw the discus 46.89 metres to win gold, and won gold in the shot put with a toss of 14.44 metres.

VanNeck is no stranger to OFSAA competitions. He advanced to the OFSAA cross-country championship in the fall after finishing second in the novice boys race at SWOSSAA. At OFSAA cross-country, VanNeck had a strong 11th place finish in a division of 270 runners.

He also was a member of the CKSS hockey team that qualified for OFSAA in the winter.

The other OFSAA medal won by Chatham-Kent competitors, was a silver medal won by CKSS’ Brooke Bentley in the senior girls shot put. She also captured a silver medal at OFSAA last year.

Ursuline’s Madeline Verbeek was fourth in the novice girls’ 300-metre hurdles, while the CKSS novice girls 4×100 relay team (Jemmoy Campbell, Gebet Osei, Gisele McKaig and Lia Hillman) also had a fourth place finish in the finals.