NACI's Logan Young led the way for both his school and all of Westman at the MHSAA's provincial cross-country meet held at Spruce Woods near Carberry last Wednesday. Young claimed Westman's only medal of the event, running to a bronze finish with a time of 18 minutes, one second in the junior varsity race that featured 221 competitors. NACI qualified six other runners to the competition. The JV girls ran a 3 km. route while the boys ran 5 km. Danielle Hanke and Courtney Gilmore came in 50th (15:05.1) and 51st (15:08.8) while Halle Hayhurst was close behind in 147th (17:49.6) for the junior varsity girls event with 193 racers. Daniel Heschuk also had a great run to place 19th out of 272 runners in the senior varsity race with a time of 18 minutes, 53 seconds and Nicholas Vallieres earned 79th place in the JV boys race with a time of 21 minutes, 56 seconds. Annebelle McCarthy traveled with the team for the meet but wasn't able to compete due to injury. “It was really windy, and for the most part it was hills and it was muddy at the end,” Young said of the race. “I think it took a lot out of most people.” For the runners, the number of competitors at the meet was amazing in itself. In four event; almost 1,200 racers took part. That made for a squishy starting line, but Young said the key to his success, and a helpful tip for any racer, was to get ahead early and then get into a rhythm. “I wanted to get out to the front to start the race,” Young said of his strategy. “I was able to get into the top-20 at the beginning and I think that helped.” NACI runners had a bit of an advantage at the meet as well. The zone meet was held at Spruce Woods so all of the Tigers were familiar with the route. Overall, word from coach Bryce Koscielny is the cross country season went well for the Tigers. “I really thought our team had a good season this year,” Koscielny said. “We had some very strong performances in both the zone meet and at the provincials, which was great to see. “As the season progressed all of our runners got stronger and improved and that's what's really important.” The coach also left the meet excited about the performance from Logan Young, who not only claimed Westman's lone provincial medal this year, he became coach Koscielny's first provincial medalist in his eight years coaching the sport at NACI. “Logan had a fantastic season,” Koscielny noted. “It takes a lot of conditioning and a high level of physical fitness to be able to run like he did, and he put in a lot of hours of work to earn this. I'm really proud of him.”