A young triathlete from Dundurn is prepping for a busy racing season this summer where she hopes to improve on her previous strong showings.

Kaycee Schroeder, 15, said her seventh year of competing in triathlons is going to be a fun one as she first tries for a top finish at the 2014 National Championships held July 19 to 20 at Magog, Que., before heading to Kelowna, B.C., this August for the 2014 Pushor Mitchell Apple Triathlon Western Championships. She said to help prepare for the season she is also going to be attending a 12-day training camp in Tucson, Ariz., next month.

“Last year I had a great season and have been building a lot,” said Kaycee, a Grade 9 student at Hanley School. “I wasn’t the strongest swimmer, so I finished all my swimming lessons and joined a swim group at the University (of Saskatchewan) and I joined STC which is the Saskatchewan Triathlon Centre in Saskatoon. My coach RossAnn (Edwards) approached me this year and said she’d like me to be coming to more races out of the province and coming to Arizona.”

To help Kaycee make it to the two out-of-province races and the training camp at Tucson the community of Dundurn stepped up by coming together for a steak supper and silent auction fund-raiser Feb. 22 at Big Mur’s Tavern. Kaycee said their generosity helped her family raise over $2,000, so she won’t be having any problems heading to these events and has kept busy this winter getting ready.

“I’m swimming three days a week right now,” she said about how she prepares for the average 500-metre swim, 10-kilometre bike and four-kilometre run youth races. “I bike twice and I run three to four days. I also do strength training at home too.”

Kaycee said she first got into triathlon after spotting a sign advertised the sport at swimming lessons and thought it could be fun. She said her mom and dad thought it would be a good idea too, so she started training.

“I did my first one and I really enjoyed it,” said Kaycee. “I was dead last out of the pool, but I still had an amazing race. Then I just kind of kept with it and started doing it for a fun summer activity and as I started to get older and more competitive with the sport I had more people approach me about it. I started running with Riversdale (Athletics Club in Saskatoon) and RossAnn is the coach of the Riversdale track and cross country club, so then I started swimming and biking with that group.”

Kaycee’s dedication and excellence to the sport since then has shown through as the triathlete has qualified for provincial funding this year to help her train after reaching high performance times in both swimming and running recently. She also approaches this year with a desire to improve on her bronze medal finish in the Under 16 Female event at the 2013 Western Championships held last August at Kelowna where she completed a 500-m swim, 10-km bike and four-km run with a time of 43:43.

“This year I’m one of the oldest in my age category, so I’m hoping to do very well,” she said. “My training has been great, (so) top three for every race I’m hoping.”

The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team may have met their match in the provincial ‘A’ semi-finals after falling 6-3 to the Lanigan Pirates last Monday at the Davidson Rink.

The loss was Davidson’s fourth straight to Lanigan including a three-game sweep by the Pirates over the Cyclones in Long Lake Hockey League playoff action earlier this month. Game 2 of the provincial ‘A’ semi-final goes March 15 at Lanigan, while a possible Game 3 in the best-of-three series would come back to Davidson on St. Patrick’s Day.

“It wasn’t the outcome we wanted,” said Cyclones coach Jason Shaw. “The first period we started slow. They got up 2-1 and then they scored in the second to make it 3-1. We had a couple power plays that would have been nice to score on to get back. When we battled back in the third to get it to 4-3 I thought we had a chance.”

That chance was snuffed out on a Pirates goal 17 seconds later when Lanigan’s Brandon Herrod seemed to surprise Cyclones goaltender Brady Willner and the two defencemen in front of him with a shot that found its way into the back of the net shortly after a Lanigan offensive zone face off.

“It was just one of those goals we’d like to have back,” said Shaw. “We had some chances where we hit some crossbars and stuff like that, but it seemed like we would score and they would score right away again. They played well and I don’t think we played our best game. When you get into the playoffs you got to have everything going to win and that night just wasn’t our night.”

Shaw said one of the problems the Cyclones faced in the game was getting off to the slow start which forced their offence to be more aggressive early on resulting in a weak back end. He said they were sending three guys to the net to try and create chances, so when their defence also joined the rush it gave the Pirates lots of chances for breakaway opportunities.

“It’s just a couple mistakes here and there,” he said. “Brady played well. He stopped most of those, so if we (don’t) keep a third guy high in their end that might take away a few of those chances, but we’re pushing to score goals when we get down (then) you create more chances for them.”

The Cyclones plan going into Game 2 is to get to the net more and try to get a few more rebound goals on Pirates starting goalie David Reekie who has played well in Lanigan’s run through this post season. Shaw said the team is just going to put a lot of pucks at the Lanigan net and then let come what may.

“We’re down to our last chance,” he said. We “go there, see if we can squeak one out, and come back here Monday and see how it goes.”

The Kenaston Kodiaks junior boys basketball team are the 2014 Sun West district champions after putting together two convincing wins over the Davidson Raiders and Biggar Blazers at districts last Wednesday at Davidson School.

The Kodiaks held off a determined Blazers team in the fourth quarter to come out with a 51-42 win in the gold medal game to take home the championship. The Blazers trailed 49-22 heading into the final 10 minutes, but controlled the game in the fourth.

“It was a really close game,” said Kodiaks coach John Jamieson. “We had a really short bench and Biggar had (20) points in the fourth quarter. They played four quarters hard and tired us down. It was an impressive game for them.”

The Kodiaks championship win followed a close 65-54 victory over the Raiders that saw Davidson also stage a fourth quarter comeback only to fall a few points short. The Raiders put up 19 points in the last six minutes of the fourth quarter to give Kenaston a scare.

“That was our toughest match-up,” said Kodiaks co-coach Dan Marsh about the Raiders game. “It was a grudge match because they beat us in the sectional final, so our boys wanted a little bit of redemption. It came right down to the wire. They pressured us like we knew they would and we came out on top in the end.”

Davidson would finish in third place at districts beating the Kindersley Kobras 55-43 in the consolation match. The score doesn’t do the Kobras justice as the game was back and fourth throughout the first three quarters with the score tied at 20-20 at the half and Davidson only up by six entering the final frame.

Raiders coach Blair Frederickson said the main priority for him was getting all his kids onto the court in their last game of the season and he is “happy” that is what happened no matter the final score. He said some players on his team are more advanced in basketball and some are beginners, so having a game where everyone gets an opportunity to play is the best situation.

“From a coach’s or a teacher’s perspective that is great because it gives the kids something positive at the end of the season, so I can get these kids to come back out next year and keep building the program,” said Frederickson, noting in their first game against Kenaston he shortened the bench to try and get the win. “Having that second game was a great opportunity for me to get some of my younger kids and some of my kids who haven’t played that much basketball on the floor and (gain) some game experience.”

To read more please see the March 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.