St. Thomas More Collegiate appears to be in it for the long haul.
The Burnaby independent school scored three first-place medals and a pair of bronze in the under-15 portion of the 46th annual B.C. high school track and field meet at Swangard Stadium on Saturday.
The school's latest up-and-comer, Zion Corales Nelson, won both the girls' 100-and 200metre finals. Corales Nelson also anchored the STM Grade 8 and 9 girls' 4x100m relay team of Guilia Repole, Annie Selormey and Isabel Chavez to a bronze medal, and the 4x400m team to sixth place.
The track success of the first-year Burnaby sprinter suggests that good times are ahead for the STM girls' track team.
Corrales Nelson's time in the 100m would have placed her sixth overall in the high school senior final, while her 200m time of 25.98 was less than two-one-hundreths of a second off a podium time.
"I just wanted to run Grade 8 to see how I would do, to just see where I'm at," said Corrales Nelson.
But the truth of the matter was the Grade 8 sprinter was in a cast with a suspected broken bone in her foot the Monday prior to the weekend meet, said STM head track coach Dave Mattiazzo. "She was something else."
The STM boys' relay teams also showed a lot of future promise.
The junior 1,600m team of Massimo Pozzolo, Danyel Fadi, Shane Noel and anchor J.J. Deslauriers shaved approximately 10 seconds off its seed time to win the Grade 8 and 9 boys' relay final.
The same four boys teamed up for a bronze in the 400m relay final.
"They are pretty outstanding," Mattiazzo added.
Pozzolo finished fourth in the boys' 200m and eighth in the 100m sprint, while Deslauriers was seventh in the long jump.
In the middle distance, Joshua Juni ran at three distances, placing sixth in the 3,000m, and eighth and 10th, respectively, in the 800 and 1,500m.
Samantha Landolt was fourth and Jenima Alphonso placed ninth in the girls' shot put. Taylor McIntosh was 10th in the girls' 3,000m.
Another young athlete to watch is Sofia Stevenson of Burnaby.
The Burnaby Central middle distance runner was second in the metric mile and third in the 800m, despite easily winning her timed heat by a margin of more than 50 metres over the next closest competitor.
