Oak Bay track stars shine at Lower Islands
It never hurts to have a two-time Olympian guiding your footsteps.
Grade 12 Oak Bay runners Malcolm Harrison and Vlad Lyesin, who outside of school are both coached by Bruce Deacon with the Prairie Inn Harriers club, captured two gold medals each in the Lower Island high school track and field championships Wednesday at Centennial Stadium.
Lyesin won the 800 metres and Harrison the 400 metres and then combined to help lead Oak Bay to the 4x400 gold medal.
“[Deacon] is more than a track coach. He has been a mentor for us,” said Lyesin, who will run for the University of Victoria Vikes next season in U Sports while studying software engineering.
Deacon, enshrined in the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame, ran the marathon at the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics and won silver at the 2003 Pan Am Games.
“Bruce knows his stuff and told us when you put your mind to something, you can reach the next level,” said Harrison, who is headed in the fall to Queen’s University.
Also running to two gold medals for Oak Bay was Liam Gatesby with a sprint sweep in the men’s 100 and 200 metres. Nicole D’Angelo of Reynolds swept the women’s sprints with golds in the 100 and 200 metres.
Oak Bay won the team championships decisively with 1,177 points, with the top-five rounding out at St. Andrew’s with 458, St. Michaels University School with 295, Mount Douglas at 265 and Claremont with 181.
Oak Bay now looks for its 25th consecutive Island high school championship next Wednesday and Thursday at Centennial Stadium and its 12th B.C. title in 16 years from June 1-3 at Langley.
Although Lyesin, Harrison and Gatesby are track-first athletes, the Mike Sheffer-coached Oak Bay team is a wide-cresting green wave.
“We have a diverse group and a lot of athletes from other sports come out and try track and field in the spring, so we have a wide range of athletes from both field to track,” said Harrison.
Tyler Dozzi of Oak Bay broke the 3,000-metre record at 8:40, eclipsing the former standard of 8:46 set by Cody Therrien of St. Andrew’s in 2011, to be named male track athlete of the meet. Hannah Henry of Mount Douglas was named top female track athlete for her victory double in the 1,500 and 3,000 metres.
The male field athlete of the meet was Valdi Alaire-Hill of Oak Bay for his double golds in the high jump and javelin and top female field athlete Amanda Glegg of Esquimalt for her triple golds in the javelin, long jump and triple jump.