An injury on the football field helped direct Robbie Gallaugher to track and field.

After suffering a dislocated shoulder in Grade 10 which required surgery, Gallaugher, a quarterback, was forced to miss football in his Grade 11 season.

That led him to give track and field a try. And despite his short time in the sport, the 18-year-old has made huge strides.

This weekend, Gallaugher is representing B.C. at the Canadian junior (19 and under) national track and field championships in Charlottetown, PEI.

“It was my main goal this year,” Gallaugher said about earning a spot.

He also attended the Games last summer, but was competing in the high jump. He has now switched his focus to long jump.

“Last year was pretty big, pretty cool,” Gallaugher admitted. He placed ninth in the event.

His foray into long jump came when during practice with the Langley Mustangs Track and Field Club, Gallaugher’s coach Kim Chapdelaine asked if he wanted to give long jump a try.

“She was pretty impressed, so I stuck with it for this year.”

“He is a very gifted athlete,” Chapdelaine said, pointing out that he has been recruited by Simon Fraser University for football.

Gallaugher is taking a semester off from football, but will likely join the Clan team down the road.

“A lot of speed, a lot of raw talent,” she said.

Gallaugher is one of two Mustangs, along with heptathlete Andrea Vicic, attending the PEI meet.

Also representing B.C. are Nathan Filipek (pole vault) and Jordan Smith (1,500m). The pair train with the Walnut Grove Track and Field Club.

All four are heading into the event on a high after competing at the provincial track and field championships over the weekend in Abbotsford.

Gallaugher won the long jump, clearing 6.92m to win his age category by 0.45m.

Vicic was victorious in the heptathlon, accumulating 4,382 points, more than 300 points ahead of the second-place finisher.

The 17-year-old was tops in the high jump, 100m, javelin and 800m. She placed second in the shot put, 200m and the long jump.

Filipek cleared 4.40m in the pole vault to win the gold medal, 0.35m ahead of the silver medallist in the event.

And Smith ran to a second-place finish in his event, the 1,500m race.

Chapdelaine has also coached Vicic for about the past six months.

“She is a very,very raw talent,” the coach said. “But an extremely gifted athlete.

“If she continues on (in track and field), she will definitely get a full-ride scholarship.

“She can be one of Canada’s best.”

But like Gallaugher, Vicic is a multi-sport athlete who is not sure where her future is.

Vicic, who will enter Grade 12 in September, also plays club and high school volleyball. She plays locally for the Fraser Valley Volleyball Club Blitz team.

She is unsure whether she will look south of the border for a track and field scholarship, or stay in B.C. and play university volleyball.

“Right now, I am keeping it open because I love both,” the 17-year-old said. “I don’t have to decide quite yet.”

She has already inquired about scholarship opportunities and heard back from some interested schools.

But right now, the focus is on this weekend.

“(This) was one of my major goals this year,” she said. “I was really excited to make it because I hadn’t made the team before.

Vicic’s dad used to run track and field back in university and she did it for fun in school.

“Pretty much I got serious this year,” she said.

Concentrating on heptathlon came out of necessity.

“I was good at all the events, but I wasn’t amazing at any one of them,” she explained.

“(And) I just really like it, all the different parts of it.”

The first year, Vicic said, her heptathlon score was just OK, and in the second year it was much more competitive, convincing her to focus on the heptathlon.