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Sports

Aztecs best Cougars in provincial volleyball playoffs

The Loreburn Aztecs and Imperial Cougars senior girls volleyball teams didn’t take home any medals from the 2013 SHSAA Provincial 1A Girls Volleyball Championships played at Mankota and Glentworth Nov. 15 and 16, but they can still take pride in their strong play at the tournament.

Aztecs coach Coralee Vollmer said the Loreburn girls’ bronze medal game at provincials against the Elrose Eagles was a close affair with both teams having a chance to walk away with a win. She said the two teams have similar strengths and both played well, but the Eagles were a little more “on” than they were.

“We’ve played them before and we’ve beaten Elrose before and they’ve beaten us,” said Vollmer, noting the Aztecs defeated Elrose 2-1 on their way to a gold medal finish at the North Regional Championship held a week earlier at Loreburn. “It’s a back-and-forth deal between the teams. Our girls can go out and compete and every other team at provincials can go out and compete. Whoever (plays) the strongest (that day) is going to come out on top.”

Loreburn won the first set 25-18 against Elrose, but lost the final two by scores of 25-17 and 25-16 despite determined play by middle Gillian Wankel and power Ashley Norrish. Gillian and Ashley both had a number of brilliant hits leading to scores for the Aztecs during the game.

Vollmer said the two players are Grade 12 students, so the Elrose game would be their last as Aztecs. She said both were invaluable for the leadership and good attitude they brought to the team all season and the experience they brought to provincials considering they’ve been there a few times before.

“They try to make (their teammates) laugh and calm them down and yet play serious,” she said adding this was the seventh year in a row Loreburn has competed at provincials. “They are both very strong players. They kept the team up.”

The Aztecs made it to the bronze medal game after a semifinal 2-0 loss to the Fox Valley Legends, which came on the heels of a thrilling three-set victory over the Imperial Cougars.

The first set saw Imperial battle back from an early deficit only to eventually fall 25-18 to Loreburn in the quarterfinal match. The second set proved much closer with both teams trading points throughout the game. After going down early Imperial tied up the score at sevens during the second set and both teams then fought point-by-point throughout the rest of the action eventually coming to a 28-28 deadlock in extra time. Imperial would pull through scoring two big points to take the second set with a 30-28 score. The Aztecs offence proved the difference in the third set winning 25-13.

To read more please see the December 2 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Remembrance Day speaker impresses crowd

Upwards of 150 people joined together at Town Hall last Monday to show their gratitude for the sacrifices of Canada’s brave men and women who have given so much for our freedom.

Alfred Stulberg, a veteran of the Second World War and longtime member of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was touched by the amount of effort that went into the annual Royal Canadian Legion branch #51 and Davidson Inter-Church Association (DICA) Remembrance Day Service Nov. 11 at the Davidson Auditorium.

“Somebody went to an awful lot of work and it sure showed,” said Stulberg, who served with the Infantry Armoured Core Division from 1942 to 1945. During the war he spent one-and-a-half years overseas and seven-and-a-half months of this time as a prisoner of war. “The service seems to be getting better every year. People are more interested than what they were a few years ago.”

Gord McRae, president of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was “surprised” by the large number of people both young and old who attended the commemoration. He said Rev. Diane Eurig did a great job emceeing the service that featured guest speaker Claude Weil delivering a stirring speech on why it is important to fight for one’s values.

“A lot of people were just ‘wow’ and really overcome by him,” said McRae, noting he has already started planning next year’s service. “It was very interesting for anybody that was there. A lot of people were amazed by his history, where he’d come from and what he did. Then they say ‘well we live in a great country. We think it’s tough, but compared to what he did (it’s not).'”

During his speech, Weil first spoke about his experiences serving as an Israeli combat soldier stationed in the Sinai Desert with a field tank company during a time of heavy tension between Israel and Egypt during the mid-1970s. He then moved on to his main topic of ‘what is the right fight’ where he described how we are all soldiers whether we are members of the military or not and for that reason we all must fight for what we believe in.

At the end of Weil’s speech he presented a definition of ‘what is the right fight’ when he said a fight is right if it is meant to directly protect the most vulnerable citizens of a country, province and community.

Weil said he chose the topic of ‘what is the right fight’ because it demonstrates how we all can fight the “little challenges” we encounter every day to make a difference. He said there are very few professional soldiers out there and they cannot solve all the world’s problems by themselves.

To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders senior girls team struggles against Hawks at regionals

The Davidson Raiders senior girls volleyball team showed plenty of determination and great sportsmanship against the Hepburn Hawks at the West Regional Championship Nov. 9 in Wilkie, but still couldn’t match the strong Hawks play on the court.

The Raiders lost 25-17 in the first set and 25-11 in the second against the Hawks giving Hepburn a 2-0 win. The loss put an end to Davidson’s hopes of bringing home a provincial title this year.

“At the Regional Championship, I thought Hepburn was the best team there and they played consistently well the whole day,” said Raiders head coach Tony Baldwin. “I was disappointed that we lost in two straight games after giving them a run for their money (Nov. 2 at the Conference Championship), but they were definitely the best team there on Saturday.”

Baldwin said the girls’ overall play during the Regional Championship was a step down from what they have displayed over the past few weeks. He said they won their first game against the Kerrobert Rebels “quite easily” posting a two-set victory with scores of 25-16 and 25-20, but even then they weren’t playing up to their potential.

The Raiders coach said the girls’ next game against Leader was a struggle with Davidson winning the first set by a close score of 26-24, but lost the next two 25-20 and 25-23 setting up the first round playoff match with Hepburn. Against the Hawks, Baldwin said there were six players for his club that stood out the most even though they didn’t see much playing time.

“Kari Van de Wiele, Katelyn Riecken, Cheyenne Nordmarken, Tina Stone, Sydney Booker and Elise McJannet were absolutely the standouts of the day,” he said. “The six of them stood and cheered and overpowered the entire group of Hepburn fans during both games where we were struggling on the court and Hepburn was playing great. Everyone would rather be on the court, (but) the fact that they were totally engaged in the game and their team in this context is a credit to all of them as individuals and to the team as a group. I was very proud of them.”

To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Cyclones feel shame after undisciplined play

The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team can take solace that they earned one point in their first two games of the 2013-2014 season, but as evidenced by their parade to the penalty box they still have a few kinks to work out.

Jason Shaw, head coach of the Cyclones, said the team did not get the results they wanted in a lopsided 5-2 loss against the Pirates in Lanigan Nov. 9 followed by a 7-6 shootout defeat at home last Wednesday to the Watrous Winterhawks. He said the “effort was there” both times, but giving up seven power play goals in the two games is unacceptable.

“We (have) got to fix that,” said Shaw. “Some of (the penalties) are just guys that are not quite in playing shape yet. We had those two exhibition games and a couple skates, so if you’re out of position and you’re not moving your feet that’s when penalties usually happen. Once guys do some more skating and get in a little better game shape hopefully those penalties won’t happen. We’re going to try to work on our penalty kill and get it a little better.”

The Cyclones dominated the Winterhawks through the first half of the contest going up 5-2 on goals by Pat Cey, Carter Smith, Kyle Bortis, Zach Sim and Derek Allan. With 6:34 left in the second Bortis took a tripping penalty, which was shortly followed by a hooking minor to Colton Allan. Watrous would score two goals on that power-play time bringing the score to 5-4.

A late second period roughing call to Steven Shearwood handed the Winterhawks a five-on-four advantage on fresh third period ice, which they used to even up the score at fives only 25 seconds into the period. The teams would exchange goals in the third remaining deadlocked until Watrous forward Travis Fagum put his team up 7-6 in the shootout. Allan, Bortis and Cey couldn’t reply back in their breakaway attempts.

“It could have gone either way,” said Shaw. “We were up 5-2 and then at the end of the second the penalties got us in a little bit of trouble. In this league every night it’s going to be a tough game. It gets you ready for provincials or playoffs because you can’t show up and just go through the motions. In the long run that’s good for us. You’re better playing 7-6 games or close games than beating somebody 10-2.”

Shaw said one of the other difficulties the Cyclones are having right now is there are a lot of new players this year and they need to learn to work together. He said the club has been lucky the past three or four years as there hasn’t been that much turnover, so the task at hand is to get the guys used to each other and work on improving the special teams.

“We might juggle the lines around a little bit, but that will probably just come out of necessity of guys hurt or working,” he said. “If we can get two lines going and scoring and score some more on the power play and get the penalty kill down we should be all right.”

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Modern times bring numbers to Hawarden households

The Village of Hawarden can no longer be referred to as the little town where you locate houses by their description. Residents have now received house numbers.

Barb Martin, Village of Hawarden clerk, said the 40 occupied buildings in the village as well as the vacant lots received numbers a month ago. She said this was done after emergency personnel requested the village office institute the numerical addresses.

“The reason that we’re all having to do it is because emergency services want us to have house numbers, they want all of our little communities to have house numbers, because (without them) it just makes it impossible for them to find places,” said Martin. “You can’t just tell an ambulance come to the second house on the northwest corner of town.”

Martin said emergency personnel used to find the right house through people going out and parking at the highway, so they could lead the ambulance to the right building. She said that makes it important to have the house numbers, but it was also fun to be a bit different.

“I thought it was kind of nice and sort of quirky,” she said. “Some people had assigned themselves numbers. One street had two number 19s on it and stuff like that, which is pretty quirky. But now we have actual numerical order numbers and everybody has their own.”

To get residences their proper numbers Martin took a map of the village and put numbers on it before members of council drove around to make sure the right houses had the right numbers. She said sometimes it was a little hard to tell because there would be several lots belonging to one person, but they did their best to make sure everything is correct.

Martin said the village office then assigned residents a number and each household was responsible for putting up their own number. Despite not being different anymore, she said it is a good change for many different reasons.

“The satellite dish people and everything like that, they want a physical address and they didn’t seem to want lot and block numbers, which is why people started making themselves up numbers (before),” she said. “You also have to have a number for your driver’s licence. I personally had taken my lot and block number and just put them together (for my licence).”

The change to numerical addresses is also good because when couriers come into town they had a hard time finding the right people, said Martin.

“It’s not like the town is that huge, but still it makes it a little more difficult. Modern times intrude on all of us.”

Sports

Sabers fall in provincial semifinals

The 2013 football season came to a close for the Hanley Sabers senior boys team after a provincial semifinal 74-64 loss Nov. 2 to the North Valley High Eagles at Lemberg.

Sabers head coach Mark Anderson said the game came down to a “couple plays here and there” that could have turned the final result the other way, but he is proud of the effort his team displayed against a team that had some “good athletes” playing their best in a wide open game.

“We didn’t score in the fourth (quarter),” said Anderson, noting the first provincial game played at Lemberg for the five-year-old Eagles club provided a great playoff venue. “It comes down to tightening up a bit. They took off at the beginning (of the game) and got a lot of points and then we took it to them through the second quarter. The third quarter was soft in many ways and then the fourth quarter they scored and we didn’t.

“That was the difference in the game. A dropped ball here, a tackle there would have made the difference.”

The semifinal was a high scoring back and forth game that saw the Eagles soar out to a 32-22 lead after the first quarter. The Sabers roared back to make the score 52-44 in their favour at the half. Play tightened up in the second half as Hanley led by a close 64-60 score after three, but was not able to sustain the lead eventually falling 74-64 to the Lemberg team.

Leading the Sabers once again was safety Mike Lohrey who played a strong defensive game while also scoring two touchdowns when seeing some plays on offence and offensive end Kody Rowlet who had a big game with four touchdowns. Sabers linebacker Damon Prystupa and centre Kirk Simonsen, who added another two touchdowns for Hanley, also had really strong games.

Anderson said the team played great this season considering they lost seven “all-stars” to graduation last June, but rebuilding is always a part of high school football. He said the coaching staff is “very pleased” with the team for their effort this fall.

“It’s always interesting to see who will step up and play and we really came together as a team,” he said. “To go 8-1 is a fantastic season anytime to get that result.

“This year we lose seven players again, so it’s tough every year. Next year we have a very small senior group of four boys, but our Grade 10 and 9 (players) are a really strong group. I think we’ll be fine for years to come.”