A first for Penticton — Lakers girls win the B.C. championships in Terrace Feb. 25
Penticton Secondary School’s Lakers Girls Curling Team not only took home gold last weekend, they made history at the BC High School Provincial Curling Championship in Terrace on Feb. 25.
It is the first time in Penticton history that the Lakers Girls team has won the title.
The last time Pen-Hi won the junior curling provincials was the Laker Boys Team in 2018 and before that, the boys took the title in 1962.
During the weekend tournament, Team Penticton won the round-robin championship five games straight, with zero losses. The final match was between Penticton and Grand Forks on Feb. 25.
Since Team Penticton won the most games advancing to the final, this gave them the hammer advantage and choice of colour stone they wished to play.
The Pen Hi Girls Curling Team beat Grand Forks Secondary in the gold medal game with a score of 9-2.
Coach Laura Tomlinson led the girls to the win.
The girls will present the banner and trophy to the principal Chris Van Bergeyk and the athletic director Brian Hurst on Wednesday.
Penticton Rotary Sunrise donated $500 towards travel costs to the tournament.
Pen-Hi’s provincial champion girls’ curling team includes Lead – Audrey Gosse (curling for nine years), Second – Miranda Allen (seven years curling), Third – Rachel Lane (nine years curling), Skip – Erin Manning (10 years) with coach Laura Tomlinson.
Penticton and Grand Forks win gold at B.C. School Sports curling provincials in Terrace
Young curlers from across the province attended the High School curling championships in Terrace last week.
The B.C. School Sports curling provincials wrapped up in Terrace on Saturday, Feb. 25 with the Penticton Secondary girls team and the Grand Forks Secondary boys team taking home gold after Zack Wolfram broke the tie in a tight extra-end shot right to the button over Salmon Arm Secondary, who took silver for the boys after losing only one game.
Grand Forks Secondary won silver for the girls over Kitimat’s own Mount Elizabeth Secondary, who won bronze early in the day before Langley’s Walnut Grove Secondary won bronze for the boys.
Terrace’s Caledonia Senior Secondary had a shot at the finals but would have needed two wins in a row on Friday to make the final cut.
The week-long tournament brought teams from across the province together at the Terrace curling rink with the top two teams from each round robin facing off for the weekend championship.
Zone representative and Kitimat coach Dave Durrant came up with the idea to have the event in Terrace and coordinated through BC School Sports, the Terrace and Kitimat clubs.
“I’m from Kitimat and our ice plant has not worked for the last two years. And the the Terrace people embraced me and my team like they were members of this community. They’ve just been awesome.
“This is an absolutely brilliant facility. I’ve been so fortunate to get to know all of the people. We’ve had over 30 volunteers helping us with this tournament. It’s just been fantastic.”
Seven boys teams and six girls teams participated in the championships, with some arriving late due to flight delays. But it all came together and went smoothly at the end of the day, said Durrant.
“Some teams who arrived 24 hours late had to basically get off a plane, scramble to the hotel and then run to the rink to play their first game with all the jet-lag and everything else.
“I breathed a real sigh of relief when those last teams got off the plane.”
The teams got a chance to mesh and socialize at a banquet on Friday with about 100 people including coaches, some parents and all the athletes, followed by a dance.
They wrapped up Friday with a friendly tournament and are again facing cancelled flights on Saturday due to inclement weather.
“We’re trying to promote mixed doubles concept for BC School Sports so we’ll have randomly placed teams out on the ice,” said Durrant.
Durrant added that curling is a great sport to promote among youth and it can become a life-long pastime.
“In my experience as a coach, and I’ve been doing this for a while now, it’s about seeing the absolute happiness and quality people that participate in curling and the kids are absolutely no exception.
“They’re just a pleasure to be around and a joy to coach.”
It wasn’t easy, but the Superhoops League title again belongs to the Crusaders! We needed a huge 3pt shot from @jeffrumbaoa22 and some end of game fortune to go our way, but wins like this are worth it for character-building, grit, and confidence heading into the Yukon Championships. We were pushed and down for much of the game late, but we never hung our heads.
FH Collins played great and we know they’ll be inspired to learn from this narrow loss. But the good news for us? We’re back at it on Monday to work on our deficiencies so they won’t be exploited in a game again. It’s going to be a fun finish to the season!
A new venue and a return to in-person competition. That’s a recipe of success for the Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT and its Traditional Games Championships.
The 2023 edition was held at Sir John Franklin gymnasium from Feb. 10 to 12 with a total of 20 teams doing battle in a mix of Dene games and Arctic sports to win the overall title. In the end, it was William McDonald School which took home the big banner with a total of 33 points scored from all of their events. Mangilaluk School of Tuktoyaktuk finished in second while St. Joe’s School was third.
Katey Davis, one of William McDonald School’s coaches, said it was an excited bunch once the final results were revealed.
“The kids were all sitting on the floor with their fingers crossed,” she said. “When it was announced, they all jumped up and shouted. I was telling them that it didn’t matter because they were having fun and learning, but they have that competitive spirit.”
Each of the 20 teams had a roster of four boys and four girls all between the ages of 10 and 12. The teams competed in such events as hand games, pole push, stick pull and the one-foot and two-foot high kicks over the weekend.
Points were given out based on the final results in each event and the team that garnered the most points was declared the winner.
Davis said she felt her students fared best in the kicking events.
“I know a lot of our boys were in the top-10 or top-12 and we did really good in the stick pull as well,” she said. “We weren’t a tall team, so some of the strength events were tougher, but we certainly did well in the other ones.”
Davis added that Darren Wicks, the school’s phys-ed teacher, played a big part in why the team did so well as he incorporated traditional games into his curriculum.
Carson Roche, the events manager for the Aboriginal Sports Circle, said everything went as well as it could have.
“We were coming off of a two-year absence of the in-person competition because of Covid, so I was a bit nervous how it would all work out,” he said. “We had four or five teams signed up with about a week to go, but then 10 teams got in on one day. We knew we’d be in good shape.”
When action began, Roche said it was obvious who had been working on technique.
“You could tell which teams had been practising because they had the form down,” he said. “Some teams were there for the experience, but you have those teams which take this seriously.”
Just to make sure everyone knew what they were doing, some of the officials demonstrated exactly how to do each event before the competition began, he added.
As mentioned, Sir John Franklin was the new venue this year; William McDonald gymnasium had been the venue since the inception.
Roche said making the move meant more room and a better atmosphere.
“We had the bleachers out and they were full all weekend,” he said. “We were able to have more kickstands out; we fed everyone in one venue. The weather was perfect for the outdoor events (snowsnake and pole push).”
William McDonald’s victory came with quite the bonus prize as they will now be heading to Juneau, Alaska, to compete in the Traditional Games Alaska event in early April. They’ll be flying into Juneau from Seattle after getting permission from the Yellowknife Education District No. 1 board to do so.
Davis said the team is practising for that event with some extra attention being given to some disciplines that are new to them.
“They play some games over there that we don’t,” she said. “The scissor broad jump is one and the seal hop is another. The seal hop looks a bit like the knuckle hop. It’s a different area of the North there and what’s traditional there may not be traditional here.”
The Junior Cager basketball tournament was just finishing up and all was going well. So well, in fact, that there was talk about how things would go for next year.
Little did the Cager know that it would end up being the last school sports tournament until September 2022.
For the first time since that fateful year, the Junior Cager was back this past weekend with games happening all around the city. Six banners were up for grabs — boys and girls in each of Grade 6, 7 and 8 divisions — with most of the winners determined on Saturday. The only division which went to Sunday was the Grade 8 boys, a battle between St. Pat’s White and St. Pat’s Green.
That contest ended up being a 68-59 win for St. Pat’s White, a bittersweet win in the opinion of Jozuard Mercado, who was one of the student coaches for the team.
He said it was a shame only one of the Irish teams could come out on top.
“We wanted both to win, but we knew that would be impossible to do,” he said.
St. Pat’s White jumped out to a big lead in the first half and that gave the team a chance to empty the bench. St. Pat’s Green, though, used that to their advantage and slowly crept back into the picture.
Justin Quito, who was one of the St. Pat’s Green student coaches, said had there been some more time, things could’ve ended differently.
“Time just wasn’t our friend,” he said. “We could’ve done it with a few more minutes, I think.”
St. Pat’s also won the Grade 8 girls division to give the Irish a sweep. William McDonald also had a sweep of their own as the Wildcats took both banners in the Grade 6 division. The Grade 7 division saw St. Joe’s win the girls title and Princess Alexandra School of Hay River claim the boys crown.
It was a rather exciting win for the Panthers as they had the Grade 6 boys and Grade 7 girls teams on hand at Range Lake North Gymnasium and they were celebrating right along with champs, said Panthers coach Jason Morrissey.
“We had our fans and Weledeh had their fans, so it had a hometown feel to it,” he said. “It was just sheer joy for our kids and the parents. We had some of the kids in tears and some of the parents as well. Just a really cool feeling.”
That was the sentiment among some of the other student coaches at St. Pat’s, including Naledi Ndlovu, who was coaching the St. Pat’s Green team.
“It felt really good seeing the kids get back to doing what they love and that’s playing sports,” she said. “Being away from it took a toll on the athletes and the morale level was really down, but you can see the difference now that it’s back.”
The Senior Cager, featuring the older students, is set to tip off on Thursday.
Congratulations to all the students that participated at the 2023 PEISAA Gymnastic Provincials sponsored by ADL. Top teams were Spring Park Pre Novice Girls, West Kent (pictured) Novice Girls and LM Montgomery Novice Boys. The event was held at Kensington Int\Sr High.
Over 240 P.E.I. athletes competing in PEISAA gymnastics championships in Kensington
KENSINGTON, P.E.I. — Kensington Intermediate Senior High School will once again be the site of the 2023 ADL P.E.I. School Athletic Association provincial gymnastics championships on Feb. 11.
A total of 241 athletes, representing 22 different schools, will compete in six age categories for the P.E.I. School Milk Foundation Awards.
“We are very excited to be hosting our provincial after a pause of two years due to COVID restrictions at the Kensington Intermediate Senior High School. It’s such a beautiful facility, it can hold so many spectators and the gym is very spectator friendly …, ” said PEISAA gymnastics commissioner Paul Goguen.
“Looking forward to seeing these students compete, there is always so much excitement and certainly always fun to watch”
The morning schedule features 123 registered pre-novice boys and girls from grades 3 and 4. This competition will begin at 9 a.m., with the presentation of awards at noon. Defending pre-novice team champions –West Kent Elementary boys and LM Montgomery Elementary girls – will both be there to defend their team titles.
The afternoon will see 118 novice boys, novice girls, bantam girls and intermediate girls from grades 5 to 9 compete at 1 p.m., followed by the presentation of awards at 3:25 p.m. Spring Park Elementary (novice boys) and LM Montgomery Elementary (novice girls) will defend their team titles.
Each gymnast will perform two vaults and one floor routine. Event and all-around awards will be awarded with schools also competing for provincial team honours.
Spectators are welcome.
Across P.E.I. schools, teachers have been busy working with their students since the start of December. All four zone championships were held with over 550 students taking part. All four zones will be sending their top three teams and top 20 all-around gymnasts in each category.
P.E.I. School Athletic Association school sport co-ordinator Phil Bridges is pleased with the continuing growth of gymnastics in schools across the province.
“This year, our numbers will be down, and it’s probably related to no gymnastics program in our schools for the past two years,” said Bridges. “We are looking forward to seeing these acrobatic athletes return for a provincial meet.
“The participation, alone, provides our students with both mental and physical health benefits through strength and endurance conditioning “
For the first time in 3 years, the PEISAA will host their Gymnastics Provincials Saturday, February 11 at Kensington Int\Sr High. Admission is Adults $3 (Cash only at the door). Thanks to our major sponsor for Gymnastics, ADL. Good luck to all participants.
Below are the recipients of the fall activity sportsmanship awards: SOCCER 3A Boys Osler Valley Christian Academy 3A Girls Outlook LCBI 4A Boys Not Awarded 4A Girls Yorkton Sacred Heart 5A Boys Swift Current 5A Girls Yorkton Regional
VOLLEYBALL 1A Boys Englefeld 2A Boys Hepburn 3A Boys Assiniboia 4A Boys North Battleford JP II 5A Boys Estevan
VOLLEYBALL 1A Girls Lampman 2A Girls St. Walburg 3A Girls Carnduff 4A Girls North Battleford JP II 5A Girls Estevan
Congratulations to the John Paul II Collegiate Boys and Girls Volleyball teams for winning the
@SaskMilk Sportsmanship Awards at the 4A Provincial Championships. Thanks to the coaches for their commitment to providing educational athletics to our student-athletes!
Congratulations to the St. Walburg Girls Volleyball team on achieving the Blue Banner at the 2A Provincial Championship! Thank you to Coaches Bartee and Wankel for their commitment to student-athletes and to @SaskMilk for their support of High School Athletics in SK!
Congratulations to Englefeld School for winning the 2022 Sportsmanship banner from the 1A Boys Volleyball Championship. Thank you to Coach Ross for his commitment to providing educational athletics to the student-athletes!
Thank you to Sask Milk for their continued support of the Sportsmanship Award!
St. Walburg
Englefeld School
Congratulations to the Valley Christian Academy Boys Soccer team for winning the 2022
@SaskMilk 3A Boys Sportsmanship Award! Thanks to Coach Neudorf for his commitment to providing educational athletics to our student-athletes!
Valley Christian Academy
Congratulations to the Hepburn Boys Volleyball team for winning the 2022
@SaskMilk Sportsmanship Award at the 2A Provincial Championship. Thanks to Coaches Braun, Ebach and Thiessen for their dedication to high school athletics.
Hepburn School
Congratulations to the LCBI Girls Soccer team for winning the 2022
@SaskMilk 3A Girls Sportsmanship Award. Thank you to Coaches Balaton and Delainey for their dedication to school sport!
Lutheran Christian Bible Institute
Congratulations to the Lampman Girls Volleyball team for capturing the 2023 Sportsmanship award at the 1A Girls Provincial Volleyball Championship. Thanks to coach Czerwonka for her commitment to the student-athletes at Lampman School!
Lampman School
Congratulations to the Carnduff Girls Volleyball team for capturing the Sportsmanship award at the 3A Girls Provincial Championship! Thanks to Coach Nichols for his commitment to High School Athletics.
Senior A at Holland College (EST) 5:00pm Sr A Women Gold 7:00pm Sr A Men Gold
Tuesday, February 14 Senior AA at Holland College 1:00pm Sr AA Women Bronze 3:00pm Sr AA Men Bronze 5:00pm Sr AA Women Gold 7:00pm Sr AA Men Gold
Wednesday, February 15 Senior AAA at Holland College 1:00pm Sr AAA Women Bronze 3:00pm Sr AAA Men Bronze 5:00pm Sr AAA Women Gold 7:00pm Sr AAA Men Gold
