Ottawa Sportspage

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.comVol. 5, #1Dec. 2015 / Jan. 2016

The stakes couldn’t have been much higher. The tournament winner gets to wear the maple leaf in Canada for the Pan Am Games, and at the World Championships.

The Commonwealth Games gold medal, #1 world ranking and near-perfect record the Stittsville wrestler had achieved the previous year? Out the window.

With those big opportunities on the line, Erica Wiebe found herself locked in a tight match against her top domestic rival at the Canadian Cham-pionships last March.

It was not the ideal moment to confuse the rules.

Wiebe had fallen behind Burn-aby Mountain’s Justina Di Stasio 3-0 in their women’s 75 kg contest, but battled back to score three straight points of her own.

For the longest time, that meant Wiebe was in fact ahead in the match since she’d scored last. But the sport was recently given a major makeover in order to keep its place in the Olympics, and that included stringent rules against stalling.

Wiebe had been issued a passivity warning earlier in the match, which put her behind in the event of a tie – unbeknownst to both her and her coach.

“I thought I was winning on the tie, but I was actually losing on the tie,” recounts Wiebe, who only figured out the status with eight seconds left in the match and wasn’t able to mount a scoring attack in time. “It was very frustrating to lose, espe-cially like that when I really had con-trol over her.”

The 26-year-old University of Calgary-based wrestler says she’s not one to dwell on failures or successes,

always looking ahead at what needs to be done next, but this one stung. Gone was the only chance in her ca-reer to compete in a major multi-sport games on home soil, and the wait would have to continue for a shot at World Championships redemption following her 10th-place letdown in 2014.

“I’m not going to lie. August was a really tough month for me,” Wiebe signals. “A lot of my teammates were prepping for the World Champion-ships, going through the process that I know so well, and that I expected to be going through as well.”

The former National Capital Wrestling Club athlete put together another spectacular season of results this year, winning significant inter-national tournaments in Germany, Spain, New York and Guelph. Wiebe was actually ranked #2 globally head-ing into the World Championships

(ahead of Di Stasio at #5) despite not being entered, although she did at-tend the worlds as a spectator, in part because the flight to Las Vegas from Calgary was fairly cheap.

“Watching the people that I’ll be competing against in the future really got me fired up,” Wiebe in-dicates. “When worlds was over, it was kind of like this weight was off my shoulders. The slate was finally wiped clean.”

Well, almost clean. There was one more lingering cloud: Di Stasio.

During her summertime run, Wiebe beat Olympic medallists, as well as opponents who’d knocked Di Stasio out of competitions in earlier rounds, but in only her only head-to-head meeting with Di Stasio since nationals at a tournament final in Greece, Wiebe lost again.

WIEBE continues on p.2

By Dan Plouffe

Wrestling for redemption & Rio

After contentious nationals defeat, former world #1 driven to make good at Canadian Olympic trials

BLONDIN BLASTS OFF

GGs RUGBY WIN MAIDEN MEDAL

P. 2

P. 3

Ivanie Blondin led a hot World Cup start for Ottawa speed skaters and Team Canada, winning 3 medals at 2 meets.

Trounced by the top teams to start their careers, local Gee-Gees rugby seniors fin-ished with the program’s first CIS medal.

GLEBE GIRLS’ GOLDEN GALLOP

P. 8The Glebe Gryphons won their 4th con-secutive girls’ aggregate crown at the OFSAA cross-country championships.

photo: steve kingsman

63RD OTTAWA SPORTS AWARDSJanuary 27th, 2016 - Algonquin College

Nominations close Dec. 14th - Banquet tickets on sale Dec. 8th at:

www.ottawasportsawards.ca

2

“It is crazy,” states the Sac-red Heart Catholic High School grad. “I’ve only lost to one per-son this season and it’s this one Canadian, twice.”

Wiebe wound up with one more chance to break the curse when she met her follow world-class canuck at a smaller early-November competition in Di Stasio’s backyard in Burn-aby, B.C.

“I set my mind on how I would beat her technically, tactically and mentally, and then I found myself losing 4-0 with two minutes left and I was like, ‘Erica, this is not the game plan!’” recounts the former Ot-tawa Fury soccer player. “But then I thought this was a really true test. Let’s go after her.

“I came back and clawed my way to victory (winning on a 4-4 tie – without passivity warnings this time). That was a really big confidence-booster. I know that when all the chips are down, I can find a way to win.”

OLYMPIC DREAMS IN FOCUSIf the stakes were high at

the last nationals, then they’ll only be greater at the upcoming Canadian Olympic team trials Dec. 4-6 in Sherwood Park, Alta.

Looking back on her na-tionals defeat, Wiebe believes it may have provided a positive end result. Her competition and travel schedule in 2014 was de-manding, while this year she’s been able to spend more time practicing at home and working on her weaknesses.

“(Last season) was a lot,” Wiebe highlights. “I was win-ning all these competitions, but I wasn’t really wrestling the way I wanted to.

“In a lot of ways, losing at the Canadian nationals was the best thing that could have happened. It made me read-dress what I wanted to do and how I wanted to wrestle.”

To say Wiebe has been working hard in advance of the Olympic trials would be an understatement. She describes many days where her body was so beat she thought she’d never be able to stand in the wrestling stance again.

“It’s like being utterly ruined each and every single night and then waking up and doing it again,” Wiebe details, laughing. “I don’t know how you can write about this and not make us sound crazy, but at the end of the day when you feel like you can’t go on, and you question why you do this to yourself, and you feel utterly self-loathing with how bad you

feel – that’s like the best feeling in the world to us.

“It sounds so sickening. We joke around about being sado-masochists, but it’s all part of the process and I love it.”

The format of the Canadian Olympic trials are a ladder-style competition. Wiebe is placed at the second-highest rung of the ladder by virtue of her last nationals finish. The nationals 3rd-place finisher will first face the winner of the pre-tourna-ment featuring non-podium finishers. The winner of that match then climbs the ladder to face Wiebe in what acts as a semi-final. That semi-final winner then climbs up to face Di Stasio in a best-of-3 final to determine Canada’s Olympic representative.

The trail doesn’t end there, however, since Canada has not yet secured an Olympic quali-fication positive in the women’s 75 kg weight class. The fastest road to Rio would be to finish 1st or 2nd at the Feb. 26-28 Pan American Championships in Texas, with two more global qualification events to follow.

Still fairly new on the scene at the time, Wiebe came close to earning an Olympic berth in 2012 just behind Calgary Dinos teammate Leah Callahan, who she wound up accompanying to London as a training partner.

“I’m in a bit of a different position this time,” Wiebe un-derlines. “I’ve put in a lot of work to prepare myself, so I feel so much more prepared mentally and physically than anything ever before, so we’ll see what happens.

“I definitely think I’m in the best shape of my life.”

LOCAL OLYMPIC HOPEFULSTwo other National Cap-

ital Wrestling Club alumni also have places on the ladder. Four-time Canadian univer-sity champion Ilya Abelev is in the #3 position for men’s 74 kg freestyle and Alex Brown-Theriault is #3 in men’s 86 kg freestyle and #2 in 85 kg greco-roman.

A Canadian Judo Champi-onships bronze medallist out of Takahashi Dojo earlier this summer, 21-year-old Adam MacFadyen earned an Ontario Wrestling Championships 61 kg gold medal on Nov. 21 in Hamilton. The former Tsunami Academy athlete now trains under the watch of his uncle, past Olympian Ray Takahashi, at the London-Western Wrest-ling Club.

NCWC-brewed wrestlers Ben Sayah (3rd, men’s 74 kg class) and Augusta Eve (4th, women’s 53 kg) also competed at the provincial event.

WIEBE: ‘Sadomasochist’ training regimecontinued from Front Page

ELITE

According to local speed skater Vincent De Haitre, the rinks of Europe may be in trouble. After all, a little heat can do a lot of damage to ice.

“We are on fire!” exclaims the member of the Canadian long-track speed skating team that collected 14 medals from the two November North American stops of the 2015-16 World Cup circuit, which now heads overseas.

Without an Olympic indi-vidual medallist in its young lineup, the rising Canadian team won its most medals at a single World Cup race since 2009 Nov. 13-15 in Calgary with seven. They then equalled that output a week later in Salt Lake City to nearly match the 15 medals won by Canadians in total last season.

The Ottawa crew of De Haitre, Ivanie Blondin, Isa-belle Weidemann and Lauren McGuire contributed to the strong showing in a big way. Blondin led the way with a pair of bronze medals in the women’s 5,000 metres and the mass start, and another mass start silver, while De Haitre collected his first career World Cup gold medal in the men’s team sprint.

De Haitre, 21, is the young-est member of Canada’s prom-ising team sprint combo along-side William Dutton, 26, and Alexandre St-Jean, 22. After

being disqualified in their sea-son debut at Calgary, the trio roared back in Salt Lake City and set a Canadian record in the relatively new discipline that mirrors the track cycling team sprint event (which De Haitre raced at the 2014 Com-monwealth Games).

Their time of one minute, 17.75 seconds for the three-lap race was 1.37 seconds better than 2nd-place Russia.

“Our objective was to win and we weren’t going to be happy with anything else,” says De Haitre, who’s clearly embraced the Calgary lifestyle since moving there in 2012, judging by his finish line cel-ebration (a bang-bang with his hand pistols, which he then re-turned to his invisible cowboy six-shooter holster).

For De Haitre, teamwork has provided the kindling for the recent flames of suc-cess enjoyed by the Canadian

speed skaters. There have been team-building meetings where the single purpose is to inspire.

“I think it has been a very good thing,” underlines the Lenovo-sponsored athlete. “Team is everything.”

Not yet on the Olympic programme, De Haitre hopes he’ll get the chance to skate the team sprint come the 2022 Beijing Games.

The team sprint gold wasn’t the only positive performance for De Haitre. The Gloucester Concordes product set new per-sonal-bests in both the 1,500 m and 1,000 m. His 1,000 m time of 1:07.45 was good enough for 5th overall in Salt Lake, while his 8th-place finish in Calgary was also satisfying since he’d had a bad cold, he highlights.

BLONDIN IN TOP FORM

Blondin kicked off her World Cup campaign just where she let off during her breakout 2014-15 season. The 25-year-old even went several steps higher, setting new per-sonal-best marks in the 1,000 m, 3,000 m and 5,000 m.

Blondin blasted her 5,000 m PB by nearly 10 seconds to win bronze in 6:55.88 at Salt Lake.

“I’m happy with my race, my personal best and my po-dium finish,” Blondin, who was paired against Russian

silver medallist Natalya Voron-ina, said in a Speed Skat-ing Canada media release. “(Voronina) was a little bit like the carrot and me, like the rab-bit. I really gave it my all and I had nothing left in the tank at the end, but I managed to skate almost all of my laps in 32 seconds, which is great. I didn’t know I had it in me.”

Last season’s overall cham-pion in the mass start – which will make its Olympic debut in 2018 – felt like she had “a tar-get on my back the whole race” in her favoured long-distance discipline, but was pleased to win her first career World Cup medal on home soil in Calgary.

“At least I’m on the po-dium and I’m happy with that,” said Blondin, who added a mass start silver in Salt Lake. “Each race is different and this is another step in the right dir-ection.”

4 LOCALS IN WORLD CUPS

Weidemann matched Blondin’s trio of personal-best performances with career re-cords in the 1,500 m, 3,000 m and 5,000 m.

The 20-year-old also tried the mass start like Blondin, competing in the ‘B’ division, and joined her Concordes com-rade in the team pursuit along with Josie Spence, placing 4th in Calgary.

McGuire’s lone race was the women’s 3,000 m in Cal-gary. After placing 14th in the ‘B’ division, the 26-year-old Ottawa Pacers product is now focused on improving her rhythm on straightaways in hopes of qualifying for World Cup meets in the new year.

“There were a lot of good things about my race,” says McGuire, who now has seven career World Cup races under her belt. “It was not perfect, but it is definitely in the right direction.”

De Haitre wins 1st World Cup medal, Blondin adds 3By Anne Duggan

file photo

Vincent De Haitre

Two of Ottawa’s top winter sport athletes, bobsledder Cody Sorensen (left) and alpine skier Dustin Cook, are on the sidelines this season. Visit SportsOttawa.com for full coverage on this story.

Timeout for 2 winter stars

Adam Simac has been driving himself crazy assembling IKEA furniture lately. But he doesn’t mind much; at least it’s something he is capable of doing.

Ask him to do anything that requires him to raise his arm to eye level or above and he’s pretty useless.

“It’s extremely painful, and I have no strength up there,” Simac explains.

That’s a major problem when your job is to be a volleyball player. The Orleans native has a torn labrum, and it comes at a terrible time. The Canadians, ranked #10

in the world, are favoured to secure their first Games appearance since 1992 when they host the NORCECA continental men’s Olympic qualification tournament Jan. 8-10 in Edmonton against #15 Cuba, #22 Puerto Rico and #24 Mexico.

Simac has played a big part in the Ca-nadians’ rise into the top-10 world rank-ings, but that wasn’t quite the case this summer. From a personal performance standpoint, the 2015 international season wasn’t a strong one for the national team veteran of eight years. He was pleased to have gone deep into the playoffs with his French pro team in Lyon, but was “pretty

beat up” when he returned to play for Canada.

“My play just kind of degraded over the summer,” recounts Simac, who is un-sure when his shoulder injury occurred.

Injury sidelines Simac from Olympic qualifierBy Dan Plouffe

Adam Simac

file photos

file photo

SIMAC continues on p.6

3UNIVERSITIES

Ottawa natives Erin van Gulik and Ashley Strike lived through some lean years in their early days as Ottawa Gee-Gees, but the pair of local fifth-year seniors feasted on the Concordia Stingers in a 65-7 thumping to conclude their univer-sity rugby careers with a national bronze medal on Nov. 8 in King-ston.

“When I first started out with this program, we were a team with many talented athletes but we found ourselves unable to execute in the big games against the top teams in the league,” recalls van Gulik, a first-team All-Canadian alongside teammate Irene Patrinos and Simone Savary (second team).

“It is pretty incredible for the girls in their fourth or fifth years to finally see this team ful-filling that potential,” continues the Gloucester High School grad, identifying the Gee-Gees’ first-ever win over Laval as a key turning point in her third year after noth-ing but blowout losses earlier. “It definitely makes the success we’re experiencing now that much more rewarding, to have seen how far this team has come first-hand. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to be a part of this transition.”

The Gee-Gees had decent 2-4 and 4-3 seasons in the seniors’ first two years under the direction of long-time coach and program founder Sue Chaulk. And then Jen-nifer Boyd arrived on the scene as new head coach and took the team to a whole new level. Strike says the local rugby guru had a pivotal influence on her and her teammates.

“When Jen became our coach, she changed the dynamics and en-vironment of the rugby program, and developed it into the success-ful team it is today,” details the Merivale High School grad who

was game MVP in her team’s Que-bec league championship victory. “She has made me not only a better rugby player, but a better human being. I would say everyone on the team feels the same.

“We all feel like a family and being a part of the process from a developing team to a successful team is the most rewarding feeling someone can have.”

Boyd, named Quebec con-ference coach of the year for the second year in a row, is proud of the strides the program has made in recent years – exemplified by the team’s perfect 18-0 record in league play in 2014 and 2015.

“The Gee-Gees are not recog-nizable from when I first arrived,” Boyd underlines. “We talked about changing the culture of the pro-gram, from the rugby players to other athletes, to our sports services staff and event staff. The girls com-mit 12 months to the program and we wanted people to recognize the

work they were putting in, because winning is a product of culture.”

“With strong leadership, like we have had the past few sea-sons with some senior players and strong coaching staff, we have managed to turn things around. We have created a culture of team first. We are family.”

Boyd had “mixed emotions” about her team’s bronze medal fin-ish since they’d lost a 14-8 semi-fi-nal to eventual-champion McMas-ter.

“We were so close to playing in the championship,” underlines the daytime Ashbury College math teacher. “But after the initial disap-pointment in the semi-final loss, we recognized our accomplishments to date this season. We knew we could not base our progress over the past three years on one game.

“We played tremendously in the bronze game the next day and are very proud of winning the first CIS medal for the program.”

GGs seniors revel in rugby riseBy Mat LaBranche

photo: dan plouffe

The Gee-Gees women’s rugby

team won its first-ever

national medal this season.

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Championship game MVP Michael O’Connor of Ottawa threw for 389 yards and became just the second starting quar-terback in Canadian university football history to lead their team to a national title in their rookie season. O’Connor’s University of British Columbia Thun-derbirds downed the Montréal Carabins 26-23 with a field goal on the last play of the game to win the Vanier Cup on Nov. 28 in Quebec City.

“We worked all year to get to this moment and to win it like we did, wow, it’s amazing,” the former Orleans Bengals player said in a Canadian Inter-university Sport media release.

RAVENS REGAIN WATER POLO CROWNThe Carleton Ravens men’s wa-

ter polo team dethroned the defend-ing-champion Toronto Varsity Blues in spectacular fashion at the Nov. 27-29 Ontario championships in Hamilton, scoring three unanswered goals to over-come a 7-4 deficit in regulation before prevailing 3-2 in a shootout.

“I can definitely say that it was one of the best games I have ever seen,” Car-leton coach Michel Roy said in a Ravens news story.

Locally-brewed players were the star performers in the big game. Capital Wave club coach Rodrigo Rojas scored twice in regulation and twice more in-cluding the winner in the six-round shootout, while Ottawa Titans products Dusan Boskovic, with three regulation goals and another in the shootout, and goalie Yorek Hurrelmann, with four shootout saves, also came up with big games in the final.

Earlier, the Ravens knocked out the eventual bronze-medallist University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men 9-7 in the semi-final round. The Gee-Gees women beat Carleton 7-4 to claim bronze in their provincials.

THUNDER COLLECT HARDWAREThe Algonquin Thunder men’s soc-

cer team claimed a national bronze medal at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic As-sociation championships Nov. 11-14 at Champlain College on Montreal’s south shore.

The Thunder won 3 of 4 matches at the tournament, falling only to champion Humber 1-0 in their second game. Al-gonquin players Isaac Johnson and Alex Asmis were tournament all-stars.

The Thunder women’s soccer team

went a perfect 15-0 in conference play to win the Ontario title and lost their only matches of the season in penalty kicks en route to a 5th-place finish at their Nov. 11-14 nationals in Peterborough.

Algonquin’s Sylvie Avedissian was named a CCAA All-Canadian and na-tional tournament all-star.

The Algonquin men’s rugby team lost a 24-22 overtime contest to Geor-gian College in the Ontario semi-finals before walloping host Conestogo 59-15 to win provincial bronze on Nov. 15.

HOST OTTAWA ULTIMATE SIDES MEETThe Gee-Gees downed the Ravens

15-3 as the two local sides reached the final of the tier 2 women’s event at the Canadian University Ultimate Champi-onships Oct. 16-18 in Ottawa.

Queen’s won the top-tier open title, while Toronto were women’s champions.

AWARDS ABOUND FOR LOCALSA number of local athletes earned

CIS All-Canadian honours this fall: Tunde Adeleke (Ravens football), Ian Stewart (Gee-Gees football), Chad Bush (Thunderbirds men’s soccer), Justin Maheu (Cape Breton Capers men’s soc-cer), Bezick Evraire (Dalhousie Tigers men’s soccer), Pilar Khoury (Gee-Gees women’s soccer), Tristan Woodfine (Guelph Gryphons men’s cross-country running), Alexandra King (Gryphons women’s rugby), and Erin van Gulik, Irene Patrinos & Simone Savary (Gee-Gees women’s rugby)

Several earned Atlantic conference major awards: football player-of-the-year Ashton Dickson (St. Francis Xavier X-Men), football outstanding defensive player Drew Morris (Acadia Axemen), nominee for football national Russ Jack-son Award for academic achievement, football skill and citizenship Will Woj-cik (Axemen) and women’s soccer rook-ie-of-the-year Ciera Disipio (Capers).

Rookie QB from Ottawa leads UBC to Vanier Cup

photo: yan doublet / cis

Michael O’Connor

4

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There probably aren’t many people more thankful the recent decrease in gas prices than Jarred Desjardins. In the euphoria of his team’s National Capital Amateur Football Association ‘A’ Cup triumph, the proud Nepean Eagles Mos-quito coach told the gathered throng of players and parents that he was going to drive to every one of the 30+ team members’ houses to pick up and drop off the trophy so each player could have a week with the big prize.

“They’re out on the field playing the game, so it’s only fair that they get to have the trophy,” states Desjardins, expressing no regrets about the commitment he made upon sober second thought. “I can only imagine the stories that’ll come up when it’s time for them to hand it over, but it’ll be fun for them. They earned it.”

Only semi-finalists last year, the Eagles were a dominant force in the Mosquito ranks this season, going undefeated while outscoring opponents by over 30 points on average in 11 victories.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” smiles Nepean championship game MVP Isiah Knight, identi-fying improved defence and team chemistry as keys to his team’s surge. “Everyone works well together. Other teams, I watch them on the side-lines and they’re fighting, but our team, we all

stay together.”The Eagles’ 52-26 victory over the Myers

Riders was by far the largest margin of victory of the five top-tier NCAFA ‘A’ Cup finals for different age groups on Oct. 30 and Nov. 2 at Nepean Sportsplex’s Minto Field. It was yet an-other big day for a Nepean offence that was held under 40 points just once this year.

“It’s easy to overlook them when the offence was so potent at times, but I think the defence played lights out,” underlines Desjardins, whose

‘D’ posted three shutouts and a couple other single-digit performances this seasons.

The title was the first for the Nepean asso-ciation under the Eagles banner, but the historic nature of the win goes farther than that, notes Desjardins, whose team became the first Red-skins or Eagles team to ever win an ‘A’ Cup at the Mosquito level.

“We’re ecstatic about that,” he adds. “They’re an awesome group. We have no egos on this team. They’re all great kids.”

PARITY RULES WITH 8 CLUBS IN 4 FINALSNepean was one of only two clubs to reach

’A’ Cup finals at more than one level, although their opponents in the Midget final from Bel-Air were the only ones to capture multiple titles. Bel-Air beat Nepean 11-6 in the Midget cham-pionship and also won the Bantam division with a 24-14 victory over the Brockville-area Rideau Redblacks.

The Cumberland Panthers downed the Bell Warriors 26-20 for the Peewee crown, while the Kanata Knights fell 14-12 to Cornwall in the Tyke final as a different club appeared in all four Sunday contests.

“That’s great,” signals Steve Dean, the pres-ident of NCAFA and Nepean. “It just shows the parity of the teams in the league.”

The championship week capped what was a banner season overall for NCAFA, Dean in-dicates. The league is proud to have the most coaches certified in safe-contact training – which includes concussion awareness – out of any as-sociation in the province, registration numbers are up, they enjoy an excellent relationship with the Ottawa Redblacks to run 50/50 draws at their home games, and Dean senses an even greater enthusiasm for always-strong minor football since the CFL’s return to the capital.

“It’s our 60th year, and I’d have to say prob-ably our best year,” Dean underlines.

Nepean coach pledges to cart NCAFA trophy to every playerBy Dan Plouffe Isiah Knight

photo: dan plouffe

Pick between Belleville in Novem-ber and Phoenix in January and the choice of destination is pretty easy for most, but for a trio of local gymnasts the way to sunny rays was paved by their stay in Quinte Bay.

Ottawa Gymnastics Centre’s Sarah Hu, Nepean-Corona’s Sophia Niza-

lik and Les Sittelles’ Jessica Reddin all qualified to be members of Team Ontario for the Grand Invitational com-petition Jan. 22-24 in Arizona thanks to their strong performances at the Nov. 13-15 Tour Selection meet hosted by Quinte Bay Gymnastics Club.

“There were a lot of gymnasts at the competition,” highlights Level 6 all-around silver medallist and balance

beam champ Nizalik, who was up against gymnasts of all ages looking for one of eight Team Ontario positions (plus two alternates) at each level. “I was shocked when I found out I had placed in the top-10.”

Despite her athlete entering the competition “with no expectations,” Sittelles coach Jocelyne Legault says “hard work at training paid off” for

Reddin, placed 6th all-around out of 68 competitors in Level 6 and won an un-even bars bronze medal.

“I’m extremely happy with my results,” indicates Reddin. “A little sur-prised because it was only my first year going (to Tour Selection).”

Following her all-around bronze medal win in the age 12-13 category at last year’s provincial championships,

Hu continued to build on her exploits in the Level 9 divi-sion in her first competition in the age 13+ group, win-ning silver on floor and bars bronze to finish 3rd overall and secure a ticket to Arizona.

Avery Rosales and Hanna Nixon from Tum-blers Gymnastics Centre also posted solid results in Bel-leville. Taking part in their first Elite Canada screening event of the season, Rosales placed 6th all-around in the novice high-performance di-

vision and captured floor gold and bars bronze, while Nixon won floor silver in the pre-novice aspire class.

3 local gymnasts earn Team Ontario tour berthsBy Brian Trota

Sarah Hu

photo: dan plouffe

photo provided

5

The Ottawa South United Force and West Ottawa Warriors under-14 boys’ Ontario Player Development League teams wrote yet another piece of history for local soccer this season. For the first time ever, squads from Eastern Ontario finished 1-2 in a top-tier provincial youth soccer division.

The 16-4-2 Force topped the OPDL east division standings, while the Warriors were next in line with their 14-5-3 record.

“It’s more recognition that what we’re doing here in Ottawa is having some results,” states OSU club head coach Paul Harris, noting that an unprecedented 33 players from his club’s four OPDL teams have been selected for the provincial program’s identification camp. “There is some talent here and we’re starting to see some opportunities come from it.”

While the Force outscored op-ponents by a combined 76 goals, it wasn’t quite enough to secure the overall OPDL title. OSU finished one point behind the west conference champions from Richmond Hill, and although the two division winners did face off for a “charity shield”

game at the end of the season, the official champion had already been determined.

“We would have liked to be there in the record books,” notes Harris, who wasn’t a fan of the odd east vs west contest that didn’t count for any-thing, although he says ultimately “it was our fault. We didn’t perform on the day.”

That day was Nov. 8 at Carleton University when the Force had a chance to clinch the overall title with a win, but could other muster a 2-2 draw with Kleinburg Nobleton.

OTTAWA TALENT CHALLENGES T.O.

Local clubs initially worried about how the depth of the local tal-ent pool would stack up compared to the GTA. Now OSU and West Ott-awa aren’t just keeping up, they are consistently beating their southern Ontario rivals.

Constant travel down to Toronto was another unpopular aspect, but Force U14 boys’ coach Simon Wilshaw has even found a positive in that. His players hated that long drive home so much after a loss last season that they were doubly motivated not to have that bitter taste linger in their mouths coming back down Hwy. 401 this year.

Another driving force for his champion squad, Wilshaw adds, is the particularly close bond between his troops.

“They all hang out with each other,” explains the England-raised coach. “When you’re playing with your mates, you’ll fight that much harder and want to win that much more.”

Having a wide arsenal of offens-ive weapons was another key for the Force. Danny Assaf (with 25) and Luca Nicastro (23) topped the league-wide scoring race, while Ant-onio Carlini and Bryan Sun also hit double-digit goal totals.

“It’s great to have so many good players on the team because it makes you work harder and you become better individually,” high-lights Assaf, who echoes his coach’s feelings about the team’s tight-knit nature. “These guys are family to me. They’re my brothers. Without them, I don’t know what I’d be doing.”

WARRIORS RISE

While OSU gets to say they were 1st, the Warriors’ 2nd-place finish is perhaps equally or more impressive. Although the scores weren’t official kept last year at the U13 level, West Ottawa was fairly soundly outper-formed by OSU when they met last season. This year, the Warriors rose to be OSU’s biggest challengers in the east.

West Ottawa OPDL coordinator Kwame Telemaque says a lot of the credit for the transformation has to go to the team’s new coach this season, Chris Roth.

Force & Warriors U14 boys place 1-2 in OPDL eastBy Dan Plouffe Luca

Nicastro

JUNIOR LEAGUES

2 local divers win Jr. Pan Am medals

OSU Force Academy ZoneThe trans-

ition from high school to university can be difficult for any student, and that chal-

lenge is especially magnified for a varsity soccer rookie matching up against players up to four years their senior.

This fall, the Ottawa South United Force Academy launched a new college prep pro-gram to address this problem and help local youth players bridge the gap to the sport’s next level.

“We’ve realized over the years – even with our best teams that have been very, very successful and had multiple scholarships – that the kids find (the transition) very, very hard,” explains OSU General Manager Jim Lianos. “The reality is when you move from youth soccer to the university level of soc-cer, it’s twice-a-day for two or three weeks in pre-season and the kids’ bodies break down; they’re not ready for it.

“Instead of scaling it back like most kids do at age 17 or 18, we want to rev it up a little to get them ready, especially physically – their strength, their agility, their conditioning – to be successful when they go into that envir-onment.”

Typically, most competitive youth soccer teams do not play together beyond the un-der-17 level, with many players electing to focus on their schoolwork or other interests in their final year of high school. Finding quality training can then be difficult for aspir-ing university/college athletes, but the new OSU program brings together like-minded players shooting to raise their game further.

“That’s very important because they all have a common goal,” Lianos signals. “They’re all ambitious, they all want to per-form, they all want to get better.”

The college prep program includes an educational component as well. Participants and parents learn the ins and outs on how to access college soccer scholarships, how to grab a coach’s eye, and what’s necessary in terms of academics.

BIG-NAME COACHES IN CHARGEThe program is led by Algonquin Thunder

men’s and women’s soccer head coaches

Dom Oliveri (the long-time coach of the past powerhouse Ottawa Fury W-League cham-pion teams) and Mike Gagliano (a former Thunder captain who won the provincial championship in all five of his playing years).

“They know what it takes because they live it on a day-to-day basis,” Lianos high-lights. “To have them come in to help us with this program I think is very valuable for the kids.”

While the college prep program could cer-tainly appeal to top players from other clubs whose teams have disbanded, the fact that an estimated 85% of participations in the first year were already Force Academy play-ers is a testament to the club’s success in developing players for the next level.

COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS RECORDOSU has consistently produced well over

a dozen college/university scholarship recip-ients each year recently, with a total of over 150 in the past decade.

“We are a big club and we are producing very good players, and now we have a road map to the next level – a bridge to go from youth soccer to post-secondary school,” Li-anos underlines. “As an athlete, you need to prepare yourself to be in peak condition mentally, physically, tactically and technically to perform.

“This is a launching pad for them to move on to the university level and be as success-ful as possible.”

New college prep program readies players for varsity soccer rigours

Dom Oliveri was recently added to the OSU Force Academy staff to lead the club’s new college prep program.

By Josh Bell

photo provided

Kathryn Grant

It was a dazzling debut on the in-ternational scene for Kathryn Grant and a fourth medal in three appear-ances for Henry McKay as the local divers both brought back bronze from the Oct. 8-11 Pan American Ju-nior Diving Championships in Cuba.

“I was a little nervous, because it was really big,” signals Grant, 11. “But, I just went for the experience and I did really well, so it was really fun.”

The Ottawa National Diving Club athlete says she handled the pressure “just by listening to my coach, really focusing on what I could do, and knowing that I would do great.”

Grant’s medal-winning effort came in the 3-metre springboard event, while she placed 4th on both 1 m and platform to finish 3rd overall out of Group D (age 10-11) women.

“I was so happy,” recounts the reigning Canadian champion for her age group. “I was so proud of my-self. It was all so amazing.”

McKay, meanwhile, lifted his career medal count to one gold and three bronze at the Jr. Pan Ams.

“I was really excited, but I think I could have done better,” indicates the Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club competitor, thinking back to his 2013 gold. “I just had a couple mis-takes here and there. But I’m always happy to represent Canada and have another medal.”

Following a 3 m 4th-place finish, McKay came up huge on his final 1 m dive to leap past a Cuban athlete and onto the podium by just .3 points with his total score of 370.5.

“That’s super small. I’m very lucky I got that,” underlines McKay, who hopes to qualify for the Cana-dian Olympic team trials through the Dec. 18-20 Winter Senior National Championships in Saskatoon.

“It was pretty intense,” he adds. “On my third dive I kind of messed up so then I had even more determ-ination on my last dive. I knew that I had to do really awesome. And then I came through and won the bronze.”

“He worked a lot of magic,” Telemaque signals. “There weren’t a lot of new players coming in, he just worked with that group of boys and got them fo-cused on the challenge, and they took it on full steam ahead.”

OSU and West Ottawa both recorded solid 3rd and 4th-place finishes respect-ively in U14 girls’ play as well.

“All four OPDL teams we had this year, every team was competitive, and every team went toe-to-toe against the best teams in the league,” Telemaque notes. “It was definitely an exceptional year for West Ottawa.”

While the league doesn’t release the OPDL standings at the U13 level, those who keep track would have found the OSU boys at the very top.

“That was a great achievement,” Harris underlines. “Even though the league won’t recognize it, we’ve recog-nized it internally to show the great sea-son we had.”

The results for Ottawa’s third OPDL franchise, the Nepean Hotspurs, were not nearly as rosy. But like the OPDL mandates, the Hotspurs are glad to have more time to develop their players and teams without the fear of being booted from the league as would have been the case in the past promotion-relegation system.

“We are very excited to keep im-proving our program, and look forward to further development of our players,” the Hotspurs state in a club news release about their continued OPDL involvement.

photo: dan plouffe

6 EDITORIAL & ELITE

Team of the Month: Gloucester Hornets Under-14 Girls’ Level 3 Soccer TeamTeam Members: Kennedy Armstrong, Julia Barlas, Tehya Blake, Danika Deschenes, Claudia Desjardins, Ariana Duenas, Cassandra Eliodor, Veronique Filion, Emily Hume, Claudia Iglesias, Perla Khoury, Isabelle MacInnis, Kayza Massey, Alexa Morin, Catherine Polan, Marissa Sellars and Shaleyn Stanton.

About: The Gloucester Hornets U14 girls won the first-ever province-wide tournament for region-al-level champion teams on Thanksgiving weekend to conclude a standout 2015 season. The Hornets lost just once in 17 games against East Region competition en route to titles in both league and Cup play. The league crown qualified them for the Ontario Regional Champions Tournament in Guelph, where they took on four other regional winners from other parts of the province. After a pair of 2-0 and 3-0 clean sheet victories over the Oshawa Turul and Windsor’s Eastside Kickers, the Hornets needed only a draw in their final game to finish atop the standings, which they accomplished in a 1-1 contest against Saltfleet. See SportsOttawa.com for the full story.

Athlete of the Month: Katherine MaineSport: Cycling

Club: Ottawa Bicycle Club & The Cyclery-Opus

School/Grade: Grade 12 Lisgar CI

About: Katherine Maine had quite the 2015 season on two wheels, racking up piles of domestic and international feats in both track and road cycling. Most recently, she cleaned up at October’s Canadian track championships in Milton, Ont., winning the junior women’s 2 km individual pursuit, the 500 m time trial, the omnium and team sprint. Maine placed 11th (omnium) and 19th (500 m time trial) at August’s junior track worlds in Kazakhstan. Maine was equally strong on pavement. At September’s Road Cycling World Championships in Virginia, Maine placed 13th out of 74 and was the top Ca-nadian in the junior women’s time trial event, and finished in the middle of a pack of 18 riders who missed the podium by 13 seconds in the road race.

To nominate Stars of the Month, go to SportsOttawa.com and follow the link on the right-hand bar under the Stars of the Month feature. Courtesy of the Ottawa Sportspage and the YMCA-YWCA of the National Capital Region, the selected Stars of the Month will receive free one-week Family Passes to the Y.

YMCA-YWCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

SIMAC continued from p.2

Mailing address:345 Meadowbreeze Dr.

Kanata, Ont. K2M 0K3

The Ottawa Sportspage is a volunteer-driven newspaper devoted to shining a spot-light on local amateur sport. The Ottawa Sportspage is printed on the first Tues-day of the month by Ottawa Sports Media, the locally- owned publisher of the Sportspage & SportsOttawa.com. Ottawa sports news from high schools, univer-sities, community clubs and elite amateur sport is the name of our game. We’re at The Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community.

Contact:Editor: Dan Plouffe

[email protected]

In a race where half the field succumbed to the intense desert heat and failed to finish, Ottawa’s Jason Dunkerley survived the T11 men’s 5,000-metre race and was rewarded with a silver medal at the Interna-tional Paralympic Committee Athlet-ics World Championships on Oct. 26 in Doha, Qatar.

“We knew it was going to be hot and we knew what we were getting into,” signals Dunkerley, who fin-

ished in 16 minutes, 11.22 seconds. “It wasn’t easy, and we just had to be more tactical. I just wanted race to my fullest potential and place as high as possible. In the end, we did pretty good and were happy with what we were able to do.”

One by one, competitors melted like Frosty The Snowman in the greenhouse until the early-evening distance event was left with just four finishers. Odair Santos built a large lead in the race for athletes with no vision, but the Brazilian collapsed multiple times on the home stretch and wound up being passed by a po-dium’s worth of athletes.

“We wanted to concentrate on our race and adjusting to elements we weren’t used to,” indicates Josh Karanja, who certainly earned his keep as a guide runner while navig-ating around Santos and his guide’s strewn bodies on the final stretch. “We knew what was happening around us, and we had to focus on the task at hand.”

Despite the “aggressively hot” weather, as Kenyan-born Karanja describes it, “you always have that mindset to go out there and win,” highlights Dunkerley’s guide of four years. “We ended up with a silver medal, so we will take that.”

Dunkerley, a four-time Para-lympic medallist in the 1,500 m, elec-

ted not to enter the shorter distance at the worlds despite his history of suc-cess in the discipline.

“We decided to put all our eggs in one basket and just focus on the 5,000 this time,” notes the 38-year-old who’s found his aerobic capacity has increased with age and years of training. “That was our goal from the start and going into this competition.”

3RD MAJOR INT’L MEDAL OF 2015

The strong finish in Doha con-cluded a successful race season for Dunkerley and Karanja. The other major highlight of the year came at the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games where the Ottawa Lions pair won 1,500 m silver and 5,000 m gold.

“It was great to hear the national anthem play,” recounts Karanja. “It was a great experience for us and it was a lot of fun.”

The late-October worlds dictated a later than usual finish to the duo’s racing schedule, but they’ll be gear-ing up again soon enough for the big season ahead.

“We gave our bodies and our minds a rest,” Dunkerley says of their post-Doha break. “But we know what’s next, and Rio is in our sights.”

Dunkerley, who came to Canada from Northern Ireland in 1991, feels confident that he’ll qualify to wear the maple leaf at what would be the fifth

Paralympic Games of his career, and he certainly isn’t ready to say his ath-letic journey will end there.

“I’m going to keep going for as long as I can because I have great support and great people around me,” underlines Dunkerley, who ran per-sonal-best times en route to his first multi-medal Games at London 2012. “I’m just happy I am still able to com-pete at this level.”

Ottawa Lions wheelchair racer Josh Cassidy, winner of three Toronto 2015 silver medals, missed qualifying for the T54 men’s 5,000 m final by less than half a second and also fin-ished 13th overall in the 1,500 m.

Dunkerley survives Qatar heat to win IPC 5,000 m world silver

photo: matthew murnaghan / cpc

By Anil Jhalli

The star attraction of the first-ever all-women’s card hosted by the Beaver Boxing Club didn’t disappoint on Nov. 7 in Ottawa as Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games champion Caroline Veyre of Montreal (right) scored a unanimous decision over Bonnie Cook of Toronto.

The top Beaver boxer on the card was also victorious as under-24 wo-men’s national team member Kaitlyn Clark earned a split decision over fellow U24 national team athlete Alexandra Strickland from B.C. It was a perfect night for local fighters across the board as Final Round’s Lai T. Mawi and Beaver’s Jessie Lozanski and Marija Curran also claimed victories.

Pan Am

BAM!

photo: dan plouffe

Simac is scheduled for surgery on Dec. 9 at the Montfort hospital. Expec-ted recovery time is four months – just in time to make a push for a Rio roster spot should Canada qualify.

“When I figured out that I would need surgery, I had things go through my mind: ‘Is this it? Is this the nail in the coffin that is going to do me in?’” details Simac, who wound up drawing renewed drive from his wife, former Team Canada women’s player Ashley Voth. “She said, ‘You know Adam, I think you’re really going to regret this if you don’t see this through and try to get back healthy for a push to Rio.’

“Ever since she’s known me, that has been my goal – to make it to the Olympics. That was the kick in the butt I needed.”

Jennifer Hartley of the Ottawa Ice and Gloucester Devils players Jasmine Leblanc and Kelsey and Kaitlyn Youldon have been se-lected to represent Canada at the Dec. 27-Jan. 4 World Ringette Championship in Helsinki. Recent Nepean Ravens grads Sarah-Lynne Begin and Molly Lewis, now with Ottawa and Gatineau of the National Ringette League respectively, will play for Team Canada in the junior event.

7

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WHEELCHAIR RUGBY PLAYER WILL ENTER PARALYMPICS WITH #1 RANKED CANADA

LOCAL SOCCER PLAYER MARTEL-LAMOTHE CRACKS CANADA’S WOMEN’S U20 ROSTEROttawa native Alexis Martel-Lamothe was named to the Canadian women’s under-20 national team for the Dec. 3-13 CONCACAF continental championships tournament in Honduras. The 17-year-old midfielder/centre-back will help Canada in its quest for one of the two 2016 U20

World Cup berths available at the eight-team competition.2ND OTTAWA SPORT SUMMIT ADDRESSES SPORT FUNDING

The local sports community gathered on Nov. 14 at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building for the 2nd-annual Ottawa Sport Sum-mit, a highly-successful event organized by the Ottawa Sport Council. “Overcoming the Funding Hurdle in Community Sport” was the theme of the day as sport leaders met for

panel and group discussions to share expertise on the key subject that permeates Canadian community sport. The Sport Council announced four local sports projects selected for mentorship opportunities at the event, and will un-veil the criteria for the first grant applications available through the Ottawa Sport Council Foundation in January.

On their heels of their gold medal performance at the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games, Patrice Dagenais and the Canadian wheelchair rugby team assumed the #1 world ranking for the first time since 2002 thanks to their victory at the Oct. 12-16 World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge in London, UK. Like the Parapan final, it was Canada vs USA in the championship game, with the canucks coming out on top 54-50.

Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club founder and head coach Dasa Lelli was presen-ted the Brian Kilrea Award for Excellence in Coaching at the Order of Ottawa awards ceremony on Nov. 10 at City Hall. Recognized as the amateur coach who best exemplifies the qualities of leadership and commitment, Lelli is the mother of rhythmic gymnastics locally, having introduced the sport to Ottawa in 1975. Her Kanata club is now 40 years old, and she’s coached dozens of provincial cham-pions, including Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games double-bronze medallist Lucinda Nowell, while positively influencing the lives of countless young women.

KANATA RHYTHMIC FOUNDER RECEIVES CITY’S KILREA COACHING AWARD

Jenny Zhao and Zoe Loh of the Ottawa Fencing Club won gold and bronze medals respectively in the junior women’s foil event at the Junior National Championships on Nov. 27. Zhao beat Richmond Hill’s Karina Li 13-11 in the final for her last victory of 10 in a row at the competi-tion in Gatineau. The University of Ottawa’s Keaton Josh Briar and Philip McCully were silver and bronze medallists respectively in the university men’s foil event. At an early-November World Cup competition in France, Ottawa native and Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games women’s team foil gold medallist Kelleigh Ryan earned a solid top-32 result to help in Olympic qualification rankings.

OTTAWA FENCER WINS JUNIOR NATIONAL TITLE IN GATINEAU

WHITEWATER PADDLER WINS BRONZE ON RIO 2016 COURSE

MEDALS OF ALL COLOURS FOR LOCAL WOMEN’S HOCKEY ELITE

OTTAWA SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

Ottawa River Runners paddler Cam Smedley earned a bronze medal on the 2016 Olympic course during the canoe slalom Olympic Test Event on Nov. 29 at the Deodoro Olympic Park’s whitewater stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Smedley finished the men’s C-1 event in 106.95 seconds, brushing one gate to incur a two-second penalty that kept him out of the top spot. In a Canoe-Kayak Canada media release, the Toronto 2015 Pan Am

Games silver medallist called his performance “a big eye-opener for what’s possible.” “Being here training and competing on the Olympic course has really got me excited for next year,” added the 25-year-old from Dunrobin.

The Ottawa Curling Club rink of skip Rachel Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle has been on absolute fire to start the 2015-16 season, win-ning 5 of 6 tournaments they’ve entered and reaching the final of the other. Team Homan leads this season’s World Curling Tour order of merit by an unheard-of 160+-point margin ahead of Team Jennifer Jones (417.613-255.746) thanks to tournament triumphs in Oak-

ville, Stockholm and Calgary and Grand Slam event victories in Truro, NS and most recently in Oshawa Nov. 10-15. After the win in Oakville, each Team Homan player also tried their had at the recently-added Olympic discipline of mixed doubles, with Weagle earning the best result in the Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic by reaching the final with John Epping, where they fell to Ottawa native Dawn McEwen and husband Mike McEwen. Homan and Ottawa native John Morris won an earlier October mixed doubles event in Portage la Prairie, Man.

BACK-TO-BACK GRAND SLAM-WINNING TEAM HOMAN OFF TO BLAZING START

Ottawa native Erica Howe made the first senior international start of her career for the Cana-dian women’s hockey team on Nov. 7 at the Four Nations Cup, stopping 11 of 12 shots in a 3-1 victory over host Sweden. It was the 23-year-old’s lone appearance at the event as Canada took silver with a 3-2 overtime loss to USA in the final. With a 2-1 overtime win over Manitoba in the final, Samantha Bouley of the Nepean Wildcats and Tasza Tarnowski and Anonda Hoppner

of the Ottawa Lady Sens went undefeated with Team Ontario Red to win the National Women’s Under-18 Championship Nov. 4-8 in Huntsville, while Ottawa’s Coralie Larose and Maggie Knott and Nepean’s Kristy Pidgeon earned the bronze medal with Ontario Blue. On the men’s side, Ottawa native Greg Meireles and Ottawa 67’s forward Austen Keating helped Canada White win the Hockey Canada-organized World Under-17 Hockey Challenge Nov. 1-7 in British Columbia.

Ottawa will receive $1.125 million over three years to take part in the Healthy Kids Community Challenge, an Ontario government program to promote physical activity, and healthy eating and lifestyle choices in children 12 years of age and under. The funds will be directed towards initiat-ives targeting Ottawa’s 20 lowest-income neighbourhoods with the support of groups such as the City of Ottawa’s parks & rec and public health departments, community-based resource centres, service providers and sports and recreation organizations, and school boards and researchers. “Adopting a healthy lifestyle needs to start at a young age,” Ottawa mayor Jim Watson said in a press release. “The City of Ottawa is excited to be part of the Healthy Kids Community Challenge, which will invest in community-based programs and re-sources that will have a positive and long-term impact on the health and well-being of our children and their families.”

HEALTHY KIDS COMMUNITY CHALLENGE TO AID LOCAL LOW-INCOME NEIGHBOURHOODS 6 LOCAL RINGETTE PLAYERS CHOSEN FOR CANADIAN WORLDS TEAMS

OTTAWA TABLE TENNIS PLAYER BEATS WORLD #2Eugene Wang earned a big victory over the reigning world silver medallist in mid-November at a top-tier international table tennis event in Stockholm. The Chinese-born Canadian player who calls Ottawa home prevailed 4-3 over China’s Fan Bo to reach the round of 16 of the

mid-November International Table Tennis Federation World Tour event.

HOWARD DARWIN BIOGRAPHY BOOK RELEASEDJeff Darwin recently released a biography on his father’s rise from humble beginnings to owning of a local sports empire featuring the Ottawa 67’s and Ottawa Lynx. The book is called The Ten Count: Howard Darwin’s Remarkable Life in Ottawa. It can be purchased through the book’s web site at thetencount.ca and on amazon.ca.

LEITRIM MINOR HOCKEY HONOURED FOR GIVING BACK ON RBC SPORTS DAY IN CANADAIn recognition of its “Hawk-ey Gives Back” bottle drive, the Leitrim Minor Hockey Association was unveiled as one of three winners of the nationwide True Sport Give-Back Challenge during CBC’s live broadcast of RBC Sports Day in Canada on Nov. 21. The show also featured coverage from the RA Centre, a major hub of Sports Day activity locally. See SportsOttawa.com for more Sportspage Snapshots.

8 HIGH SCHOOLS

She might be tired and feel-ing sick, or covered in mud, but whenever Mei Mei Weston finishes a race, there is always smile on her face, and not just because she’s often the winner.

“When I run, I feel alive,” explains the Grade 10 Glebe Collegiate Institute student. “Running itself, during a workout or a race, feels ab-solutely terrible, but I do it for the effect afterwards. It’s the endorphins, but I just feel amazing, like I’m on top of the world basically. I love it.”

It’s a love Weston seeks to spread. Once she’s done her race, the back-to-back high school cross-country city champ always makes sure to welcome the other finishers and congratulate them – team-mates and rivals alike.

“I would never have done this three years ago. I despised all of my competitors,” recalls Weston, but that changed in Grade 6 when she battled for a win against Teagan Shapansky – now a Glebe teammate and this year’s midget girls’ city champ.

“It was a really close race. She pushed me really hard. I ended up beating her in the last 200 metres,” Weston recounts. “When we crossed the finish line, I was so dead and I was just so happy to be done, and she came up to me and she gave me a hug and she said, ‘Good job.’

“That just opened up my eyes. I told my parents about it and they said that’s a really great thing to do, and ever since then, I’ve always gone back and greeted everyone.”

DRAMATIC OFSAA TRIUMPH

At the OFSAA Champion-ships on Nov. 7 in Duntroon, Weston completed her provin-cial medal collection with a gold. Her come-from-behind, crash-filled victory in the junior girls’ race came on the heels of individual bronze and team sil-ver wins as a midget last year.

“I really want to give credit to my coach, Mr. Dillabaugh. He is an amazing person,” We-ston underlines. “He always urges me to go on and always makes me work harder.

“It’s because of him that I am where I am right now.”

When asked to explain how Glebe manages to be so strong at cross-country running, similar praise for their coach immediately comes from Ali Pouw, a member of the ridicu-lously dominant repeat OFSAA senior girls’ champion team.

“Kirk Dillabaugh, he’s a

really good coach,” Pouw, a cross-country skier by trade, answers without hesitation. “He’s really enthusiastic about recruiting athletes when they first come to Glebe so they stick with the sport, and he makes the practices fun.”

The Glebe senior girls are so strong that Pouw wasn’t even able to qualify in her school’s top-5 to run on the OF-SAA team last year as a Grade 11. This year she finished 11th against the best runners in the province.

Katherine Marshall led the way in 10th place, Keili Shepherd placed 16th, Cassidy Grimes was 40th, and non-scor-ing runner Anna Larkin came 69th for the Gryphons.

Glebe posted a total of 77 placement points to win by 160 over 2nd place. No team in any other division even won by 50.

“We’re a really tight-knit group,” highlights Pouw, also an OFSAA cross-country team

champ on snow. “It’s too bad only five of us can race, and six or seven can go with two alternates, but it’s nice to have such a big group to train with and push ourselves. Even if you don’t make it to OFSAA, you’ve improved as a runner.”

4 IN A ROW FOR GLEBE GIRLS

The Gryphons midget girls (led by Shapansky in 8th place, along with Rosalyn Barrett, Sarah MacIntosh, Taya Dav-ison and Sophie-Anne Burger) were team bronze medallists, while the Glebe junior girls placed 4th.

That gave the Gryphons their fourth consecutive girls’ aggregate championship, and also pushed their school to the top of the combined boys’ and girls’ standings.

Although it’s not tracked by OFSAA, Dillabaugh al-ways compares the perform-ances between regional associ-ations. When taking the top-5

individual finishers in each race, national capital girls were the best in the province by a solid margin, while the city’s boys were 3rd.

Top individual finishes came from: Sir Robert Bor-den’s Brady Johnston Neilson (4th, midget boys), Glebe’s Jack Pensom (5th, midget boys), Bell’s Philipe Turcanu (4th, junior boys) and Louis-Riel’s Jonathan Rioux (8th, ju-nior boys).

Longf i e ld s -Dav idson Heights’ Shona McCulloch ran alongside the eventual cham-pion for most of the senior girls’ race but had a bad fall with around 600 m left and did not finish, thus ending her un-defeated high school record.

Glebe OFSAA XC champ has gold medal speed, attitudeBy Dan Plouffe Awhile ago, Mei Mei Weston (left) might have been

pleased to see her rivals bruised up, but she now congratulates all runners as they finish, drawing inspiration from a teammate’s gesture in defeat.

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At the Nov. 26-28 OFSAA ‘AA’ boys’ volleyball champi-onships in Kenora, the defend-ing-champion Franco-Cité Faucons fell to an old nemesis in the championship game.

Last year, the Faucons broke a streak of eight con-secutive OFSAA crowns won by St. Catharines’ Eden High School. Franco-Cité didn’t drop a set in winning six matches to reach this year’s final, but then lost to Eden 15-25, 26-24, 20-25, 25-22, 11-15 to take silver.

At the April 25-26 OF-SAA girls’ golf festival in Windsor, defending champ Julia Malone from Ashbury finished in a tie for 7th.

The St. Peter Knights will represent the national capital for the second year in a row at the OFSAA football bowls on Dec. 1 in Hamilton. The Knights won their seventh city title in eight years on Nov. 14, downing St. Francis-Xavier 35-7 to avenge their only loss in a 5-1 regular season.

FAUCONS WIN VBALL SILVER

photo: dan plouffe