Local ECS athletes spent the weekend in Saskatoon, competing in the provincial track and field competion held in Griffiths Stadium on Friday and Saturday, and they showed an outstanding representation of Estevan and the southeast district

"This was definately one of the strongest teams that I have coached in the last 6 years of me being at ECS," shared Head Coach Caitlyn Giesbrecht.

"We took 18 athletes and of those, most of them were going for more than one event. That right away shows the strength of the team. We ended up having nineteen top 16 finishes, which means 19 performances put them in the top half of the province."

She noted that they the trend of bad weather continued to plague them even then, including hail and extremely hot temperatures.

"Still, everyone managed to dig deep and put up personal or seasonal best performances. It just really blew me away how strong the team was."

Giesbrecht noted that 13 personal bests out of 18 athletes was one of the highlights of the occasion for her.

"That means that they worked and trained at the right pace and the right time. To put up their best results in that last weekend is something that is hard to do under a stressful situation and competition that they have maybe never experienced before."

She named Hunter Wallster, Taylor Haux, Caz Barnstable, Carter Davenport, Tatiana Dutka and Morgan Fichter as those who finished in the top spots in their events. Dutka, Barnstable and Fichter came away with medals as well.

Tatiana Dutka also accomplished an additional feat, in setting a new record for the Quad event.

 "The Quadathalon is unique, where they compete in Shot Put, Long Jump, the 100 and the 800. They get points from each of how well they performed as well as their rankings against each other. Not only did she finish with a Bronze medal in the overall Quad event for point totals, she also set a new meet record for the Quad Shot Put and beat the previous one by almost half a meter," Giesbrecht explained.

She also expressed her personal feelings about her team.

"As a coach, I couldn't be more proud. I saw them work really hard this year. Most of the athletes who made it to provincials were coming for two, three or even four practices a week, sometimes on weekends, as well as over the Easter break. Each one of the athletes who competed this last weekend, as well as those on the team who competed earlier in the season, really had the coaches and I feeling like this was probably one of the strongest teams that we have seen at ECS in a long time."

Giesbrecht added that she hopes that this encourages younger, future athletes to join and improve the program.

See the full list of results from the season HERE.