Regina Sports Information

REGINA - The University of Regina's cross country teams opened up the 2017 season on Saturday afternoon at their annual Cougar Trot, a multi-division event held in Wascana Centre.

Full Results

Coming off a season in which he earned All-Canadian honours, fifth-year runner Adam Strueby appears to have picked up right where he left off. Strueby won the Cougar Trot for the second consecutive year, finishing in first place on the eight-kilometre course with a time of 24:57.

Marc Turmel (26:00) and Matthew Johnson (26:18) finished in second place and third place, respectively, as the Cougars swept the podium. Alex Eiswerth placed fifth (26:56), Quinn Legare (pictured) was sixth (27:01), and T.J. McBride finished in eighth place (27:48).

"On the men's side, we had to run based on strategy to compensate for the lack of competition," said Cougars cross country coach Bevin Thompson of the race, which had only two other U SPORTS runners in it besides the six U of R athletes. "Adam's race was nice and controlled, and Quinn has made huge improvements to show that he's ready to be a scoring factor for us."

The 6K women's race was won by the University of Saskatchewan's Courtney Hufsmith, who came in with a time of 21:40. The U of R's top finisher was Tianna Dodds, who had a time of 23:40 to place third.

Running in her first race at the U SPORTS level, Kelsey Haczkewicz was the second Cougar across the line and placed eighth overall in a time of 24:43. Hillary Mehlhorn finished just behind Haczkewicz in ninth place (24:52), while Justine Zarowny was 12th with a time of 25:12.

"On the women's side, we were missing some key people but the ones that did run raced very well," Thompson said. "We'll continue to work on patience as we adjust to racing eight kilometres later this season. Tianna showed a strong start with a solid race that she had to do mainly on her own, and Kelsey showed great strength running her first 6K race."

Next up for the Cougars on the schedule is the University of Saskatchewan Open, set for Sept. 30 in Saskatoon.