By: Brendan Jewell

The Centennial Colts are set to host the Cross-Country Invitational this Saturday at Ashtonbee Campus in Scarborough, Ontario.

This is the first time the event has been held at the college since 2019, due to the cancellation of the 2020 OCAA season. Centennial will welcome 13 schools to the event from all over the province, with colleges such as St Clair College (Windsor) and St. Lawrence College (Cornwall) making long trips for the meet.

Four athletes will represent Centennial at the invitational, with three in the Women's race and one in the Men's. One athlete to focus on is Nadia Rochefort, who will make her Cross-Country debut for Centennial in the invitational. The Quebec native has had a great track career and will be a welcomed force to the team ahead of the event. Centennial will be trying to improve their results from the Fanshawe Invitational last weekend on their home turf, with female runners Natalie Zarins and Hayley Howsen finishing 37th and 38th respectively and the lone male representative Sebastian Nava finishing 42nd.

For the Woman's race expect to see another strong showing for Fanshawe College who had four runners place inside the top ten at the Fanshawe Invitational, owning the team portion of the event. As far as athletes to watch for on the Men's side, Seth Marcaccio is sure to have another strong showing this weekend after winning the eight-kilometre race at an impressive time of 25:43, a near minute ahead of his teammate Sandy Freeland who finished second in the competition. This is the final cross country event before the OCAA championships at Humber College in two weeks, so expect to see some great times and competitive races from all the athletes participating.