It just may have been Hope’s biggest-ever sporting event.

Last Wednesday, close to 600 teens and their coaches gathered at the Hope Golf and Country Club for the Fraser Valley cross-country championships. The Fraser Valley zone includes all school districts from Surrey, Coquitlam and Port Moody, eastward to Hope — a huge population to draw from.

Hope Secondary’s athletics coordinator, Jason Fisher, was the head organizer — but he says, “It was far from a one-man show.

“We had a lot of students who volunteered to help,” says Fisher. “Sure, they got the day off of school — but they did their jobs well. We had 12 students out on the course, directing runners, and others working in the parking lot and at the finish line. Two parents helped as well, Liz Willock and Elizabeth Middleton — and we had an HSS grad, Alex Friesen, come and help too.

“Many of the visiting coaches lent a hand, to help make things run smoothly — and my wife, Lisa, helped with registration, results, flagging, moral support and clean-up. We had an invitational run here, the previous week, and the weather was okay during the event but it was a downpour when Lisa and I were cleaning up. We got drenched!

“This time, the weather was almost perfect: no wind at all, cloudy and cool... but not too cold.

“Gardner Motors supplied us with their tent, in case of rain, and the District of Hope supplied a ton of cones to mark the course with — and the golf course was just awesome to allow us to use their property at no cost.”

The wide expanse of the driving range made a good area for starts and finishes for all six runs. The opening leg of the 2.2-km course headed northward, into the bushes near the Fraser River. Runners came back onto the course near the 7th tee-box and ran along the side of the sixth fairway, crossing in front of the fourth tee-box and back to the driving range.

Grade 8s had a slightly modified route, while juniors and senior girls did two laps. The senior boys made 3 laps, for 6.6 km.

“The golfers were really flexible for us,” adds Fisher. “They’d wait for the runners to pass through, or change to other tee-boxes.”

For the small contingent of seven runners from Hope Secondary, the sea of visiting competitors must have been an eye-opener.

“The Fraser Valley is a very strong zone,” says Fisher. “The guy who won the senior boys’ event will probably win the Provincials — and the girl who won the seniors girls’, Alex Siemens from Mouat in Abbotsford, is only in grade nine and she has a good chance of winning the Provincials.”

In the grade 8 runs, Hope’s Siobhan Evans placed 46th in the girls’ race, with a time of 21:23 over 3.4 km. Jake Else came 56th in the boys’ event, at 18:48.

Cousins Alex and Arden Sauvé ran in the junior girls’ race. Alex placed 41st at 24:34 and Arden came 51st at 25:28 on the 4.4-km course.

Colin Webber’s 25:29 placed him 122nd in the 133-member junior boys’ event, while Travis Herrling took 26th with a 19:12 run.

Mark Webber ran the senior boys’ course in 34:38, to give him 115th place.

“Travis had the best chance of a good finish,” says the coach. “He was running tenth after the first lap — but he had turned his ankle in soccer and he turned it again during the run.”

Schools that had teams of five or more in a division could compete for team honours.

“You count your top-five finishes and the lowest total wins,” explains Fisher. “Kwantlen Park of Surrey easily won the senior boys, by 35 points less than the next school — and South Delta destroyed everybody in the junior boys. They had first, third, sixth, eighth and twenty-third place. The next school was White Rock Christian, 56 points behind.”

Fisher says the HSS juniors would have been welcome to join the junior invitational at the Provincials this weekend in Surrey, but they chose not to go.

“It’s too bad, as it’s a good experience. Just seeing 200 athletes take off at one time is awesome. You can feel it!”

Fisher says he got many positive comments about the Hope event from the visiting teams — so much so that they want to come back next year.

“I’ll have to sit down and do some planning with the golf course staff,” says Fisher.