Saturday, Dec. 6 was a banner day for the Langley Mustangs track and field team.
That night, a number of Mustangs athletes received awards at the annual BC Athletics awards banquet.
Heptathlete Georgia Ellenwood, based upon her seventh place finish at the world championships, was named the province’s top junior female athlete.
Steeplechaser Nic Colyn was named the top youth athlete while Braedon Dolfo, for the fifth year in a row, was awarded as B.C.’s top athlete with a disability.
Kevin Harrison, the long-serving Mustangs coach, was tapped as the top junior development coach.
Others being recognized included Brittni Wolczyk (javelin) who was nominated for the top youth female as well as Tanika Dolfo (hammer throw),
Megan Champoux (hurdles), Hannah Morrison (hurdles), and Lauryn Cheung (pole vault) in the midget girls age group.
In the administrative category, Langley’s Sue Kydd took home the Jane Swan Memorial Trophy. The trophy is presented to a volunteer for his or her long time service to junior development athletes in B.C.
Star studded Spartans
At the university level, Trinity Western had an outstanding night at the banquet as four of its student-athletes were presented with year-end awards.
Fifth-year Spartans athlete Alison Jackson was named as the senior female cross country runner of the year, second-year Regan Yee was named the junior female cross country runner of the Year, first-year Marita De Schiffart took home junior female road runner of the year honours and Jessye Brockway was awarded as the 2014 para-athletics female athlete of the year.
The Spartans’ Jackson earned the senior female cross country award after finishing seventh overall at this year’s CIS championships while earning both CIS first team All-Canadian and Canada West first team all-star honours. Following that, Jackson competed in the Canadian championships and finished 19th overall.
Yee won the junior female cross country award for the second straight year after an impressive season with the Spartans in which she finished 17th overall at the CIS championships and was named a Canada West first team all-star. Then, at the Canadian championships, she finished fifth in the junior race.
Jackson and Yee helped the Spartans to a program-best second place finish at the CIS championships this year and a second straight Canada West title.
On the roads, De Schiffart won the junior female award following a road running campaign that saw her finish first amongst junior-aged athletes in the 2014 Frontrunners Island Race Series.
De Schiffart was injured throughout her first year at TWU and did not compete in the cross country season.
De Schiffart joins her brother and fellow Spartans athlete Joel De Schiffart in the BC Athletics awards circle, as the now third-year runner won the 2013 junior male cross country runner of the year award and both the 2012 and 2013 junior road runner of the year awards.
Brockway, who is in her fourth year studying at TWU but just her second year training under Spartans coach Laurier Primeau, nabbed the para-athletics female athlete award after a summer in which she earned a gold medal in discus and a bronze medal in shot put at the 2014 International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation’s World Junior Games.
With four more awards to their credit, TWU athletes have now won 11 BC Athletics Awards over the last four years.