Jun 09, 2010 - 03:08 PM

Brian McNair

CLARINGTON -- It wasn't supposed to happen quite so quickly for Katey CoDyre.

And yet, there she was, a Grade 10 Courtice Secondary School student competing in an open-aged event and winning it at the OFSAA provincial high school track-and-field championships last week at the University of Western Ontario in London.

CoDyre, competing against some two years her elder, won the 1500-metre steeplechase event in a time of 5:02.33, only about six seconds off the OFSAA meet record.

It completed a perfect high school season in the event for CoDyre, a distance runner who latched onto the steeplechase after coach Bill Cunliffe noticed how adept she was at hurdles in practice.

"It was like all my hard work from the past few years had just paid off," said CoDyre. "The race started off very fast. I can't really remember a lot of it. I was with a group up until about one lap to go and I actually got passed by about three girls. I had to catch up to them and I was still behind a girl up until the very last straightaway and I got her at the line."

Cunliffe knew CoDyre had an excellent chance of winning a medal, but wasn't sure how she would handle the pressure of competing at OFSAA, the biggest meet of the high school season.

"People always pull things out of the hat at OFSAA, it's such a big experience, and she being a younger one might not handle it as well, so I thought maybe make the final, get a medal out of it is what we were really hoping for," he explained. "For her to actually pull it off and get the gold was a nice surprise."

CoDyre also competed in the junior girls' 3000m run, finishing seventh.

It was the swan song for another Courtice athlete, Evan Esselink, who is off to Indiana University on scholarship in the fall. And he didn't disappoint in his final high school meet, winning a bronze medal in the 1500m run and finishing fourth in the 3000m.

"He's always been one of those top six, seven guys, but he's never really cracked the medal barrier, he's always been just outside of it," Cunliffe said of an event that is loaded with talent, much of it local. "So this was a good one for him. He finally got that medal he was hoping for."

Courtice sent two other athletes to OFSAA, BJ Cunliffe, who finished seventh in the senior boys' 800m, and Brandon Ackerman, who was 18th in the junior boys' 400m.

Holy Trinity's senior 4x100m relay team placed eighth, while Derek Brown was ninth in midget boys' shot put and Blair Winner 18th in midget boys' discus.

For CoDyre, who will no doubt take a run at the OFSAA record in steeplechase in the years to come, the experience of the meet was unforgettable.

"The OFSAA experience in general is way more intense and way more professional than all the other high school meets you go to," she says. "So you really get the feel of what it's like to be a competitive athlete rather than just doing something for recreation and fun."