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Sports

Raiders junior boys and girls volleyball teams square off against the Kodiaks

The Davidson Raiders junior boys and girls volleyball teams squared off with their counterparts from Kenaston last Tuesday at the Davidson school gym with each of the four teams looking forward to a successful season.

The action started off with the Raider boys defeating the Kenaston Kodiaks three sets to two in what proved to be an evenly matched game between the clubs. The sets, which featured many strong back and forth rallies, saw the Raiders win the middle three and the Kodiaks the first and fifth.

Raiders junior boys coach Kristin Dolman said her guys played “really well” considering they haven’t had many games to practise on their techniques. She said the team improved in their “three separate three hits” and their communication on the court through the game, which should help them as they get ready for sectionals at the end of the month.

“We have a lot of Grade 7s,” said Dolman. “We don’t have a lot of (Grade) 8 and 9 players, so we’re a growing team.”

Dolman said there are only teams from Loreburn and Kenaston in their league, which means they won’t have many regular season games before sectionals at the end of October. She said the Davidson squad is a “strong enough team” to triumph once that tournament begins, but whether they move on to districts would depend on what they do on the court.

“Loreburn and Kenaston, we’re all fairly evenly matched,” she said. “It’ll just be what happens (on) that day. Hopefully we can get a little more practice and be a more competitive team that day.”

Maigan Hominick, coach of the Kodiaks junior boys, said the game was a “huge improvement” for her club and she is really proud about how they did. She said Kodiaks’ player Nolan Haugan stood out with his work during the game, but overall it was a great team effort as they continue to move forward.

“We are basically working on skill building right now,” said Hominick. “It’s a very young team, so it’s just basic skills (like) calling the ball, getting to the ball and if you call the ball you need to hit the ball type of thing. We’re just working as playing as a team and communicating.”

After the boys left the court the girls entered and a lively match-up that featured many strong kills by Kenaston’s Ann Ulmer ensued. The Kodiaks defeated the Raiders 4-0 in the game, but the majority of the sets were really close with many of the girls on both sides of the net getting touches during the game.

To read more please see the October 7 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Sports

Physical Bulldog offence bites Raiders

The Davidson Raiders senior boys football team (0-3) suffered a devastating 78-25 loss Sept. 27 to the Central Butte Bulldogs (1-2) at The Dog House, but their coach said he is the one to blame for the defeat and not the players on the field.

“On offence we made a couple changes and they were probably mistakes on the coaches part by changing a couple players out thinking that we could help our defence,” said Raiders coach Blair Frederickson. “We took players off offence and put them on defence. We didn’t help that and our offence did nothing in the first half. We flipped players back to where they were the week before in Hanley where our offence had been successful and the second half was better for us.”

By the start of the second half, it was too late. The Bulldogs had a commanding 48-7 lead heading into the third quarter and led 64-13 after those 12 minutes were up.

Frederickson said his team was “out-physical-ed” by Central Butte at the start of the game resulting in the lopsided first half score. He said the coaching staff is working with the players to try and develop a more physical game, but it takes time to learn to be at that level of physicality.

“Our defence played a lot better,” he said. “Our young guys on defence managed to if not stop them at least make them put seven or eight plays together to drive the field. We didn’t give up any more of those lightning fast one play touchdowns, but being so young on defence they were more physical and they were able to push us out of the way.”

Troy Wist, coach of the Bulldogs, said his players came out ready to play. He said their defensive game plan was successful in shutting the Raiders offence down frequently in the early going, which gave their offence the ball back in good situations.

“Offensively we’re still running a very good mix to keep (our opponents) honest of pass and run, inside and outside and deep and short,” said Wist. “They executed well and put up a bit of a point spread (in the first half).”

Frederickson said one great thing about the game in Central Butte is seeing all the parents and fans of his team make the journey out to support his players during the game. He said it amazes him to see people make the hour-and-a-half journey to Central Butte or the three-hour drive to Gull Lake earlier in the season and would like to show his appreciation for their enthusiasm.

“Something that boosts the kids confidence and boosts the program is the support we’re getting in the community and the amount of support we’re getting from our parents,” he said. “It’s gratifying to have not just parent’s support but community support and I think it gets the kids excited.”

To read more please see the October 7 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Bladworth

Conference helps students lead the way

Nine kids from Davidson School recently spread out across the country to try and become better leaders for their school and community.

Matthias McCreary and Sarah Nykiforuk headed to Montague, Prince Edward Island, Sept. 15 to 23 as part of a Sun West School Division team for the annual Canadian Student Leadership Conference. The objective of the conference is to help young people develop leadership skills, build confidence and discover new ideas to make a difference in their school and community.

Davidson SCC (School Community Council) representatives Liana Farrell, Bradley Brazeau, Kim Baldwin and Paige Hodgins joined Matthias and Sarah later on at the conference.

“It was to promote leadership,” said Matthias. “All the people that were there were either leaders or striving to be leaders. While there you attend different workshops and some of them would be about leadership or some of them would be promoting different things you could lead kids to do (like) causes, charities and that kind of thing. It’s just a way of promoting leadership.”

Liana said there were around 800 students from across Canada gathered in PEI to learn leadership skills. She said the students also got to participate in fun activities such as a laser tag and working through a corn maze during the week along with listening to keynote speakers and participating in the leadership workshops.

“This was a way to get ideas from all across Canada to see how different provinces and different schools try and get people involved,” she said.

At the Saskatchewan Student Leadership Conference held Sept. 18 to 20 in Lloydminster, Davidson School students Quin Johnson, Elise McJannet and Kaitlyn Baldwin led the charge for a more inclusive school community.

Elise said the provincial leadership conference had the same agenda as the national, but with 800 kids just from Saskatchewan. She said listening to the keynote speakers was one of the best moments at the conference for her.

“It was really cool,” said Elise. “An Olympian spoke and really funny people spoke. It was all how they showed leadership and how they overcame adversity to get where they are.”

To read more please see the October 7 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, featured

Town cooks up ideas to solve kitchen dilemma

Elected officials and staff with the Town of Davidson are trying to find a solution to an unhappy volunteer core and dissatisfied customer base at the Communiplex kitchen and lounge.

In an attempt to solve this problem the town has been trying to hire a kitchen/lounge manager for the rink, but as yet no one has come forward and applied for the position. A posting for the full-time job ended Sept. 20, but town officials still hold out hope that it will be filled before the rink opens for the skating season around the middle of October.

Trevor Ouellette, recreation director for the town, said he wants a kitchen/lounge manager hired as soon as possible, with the first hockey game to be played at the rink on Oct. 26 as the drop point. He said the recreation board met last Wednesday with a group of kitchen and lounge volunteers to try and come up with ideas on how to run the restaurant differently this winter in case no one does come forward by this time.

“As a town we know that the system in place would probably need to change, not that it was broken, it’s just ‘is this the best way to operate’,” said Ouellette. We’re “listening to volunteer feedback (about) what we can do.”

Several volunteers have raised numerous concerns with how the rink kitchen and lounge is run and also what is expected of them. They cite a lack of organization, an unrealistic expectation on the volunteers, an unfair system where many volunteers on the call list refuse to work their shifts and having the volunteers responsible for the cooking of food as ongoing problems at the rink.

Another concern for some volunteers is the town has begun to rent the rink out to teams from Saskatoon and Regina for their tournaments, but Davidson volunteers are still asked to run the kitchen and lounge on these days even though their kids aren’t involved in the play. They say helping out the rink is a priority for them, so they come out and work those shifts as well, but feel they shouldn’t have to on those days and it might be a good idea to just lease out the kitchen and lounge to a business and let them take it over if these events are going to become more commonplace.

Jason Shaw, a Davidson councillor and recreation board member, said the town can’t find anyone who wants to lease or rent the kitchen and lounge or a kitchen/lounge manager because of the unstable rink schedule and the big commitment involved with being tied to the restaurant from October to April. He said another problem is they would have to raise fees if they were to lease it out, which could stop some kids from playing hockey.

Fees “are going up for everybody and we’re going to try and keep them moving up a little bit, but that’s the dilemma,” said Shaw. “You don’t want to have them too high. That is the trade off with keeping fees low, (it’s) people volunteering in the kitchen. If you go to Regina or Saskatoon you pay quite a bit more, but they’re not doing any volunteer hours.

“The fees for the rink are only part of what it cost you to have a kid play hockey now. With the younger age group they play in a Moose Jaw league (and) people are driving in there, so you don’t want to price it too high that kids aren’t playing hockey.”

To read more please see the Sept. 30 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Davidson School extends welcome to seven new interns

The teacher population at Davidson School is up by half this fall after an unusually high number of interns took postings in classrooms throughout the school.

Interns Caitlin McCarthy, Alicia Hicks, Jennifer Gelleta, Randi Bender, Erin Toner, Kelsey Pragnell and Erin Palmier are presently immersing themselves in school life as they learn the ins and outs of teaching their various classes. The University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan education students are posted in one of the classes of Kindergarten, grades 2, 3 and 5 and the senior subjects of science and history, math and English.

“It’s been great so far,” said Pragnell, 22, who is working with teacher Laura Willner in the Grade 2 class. “I’ve been doing music for a while now with the Grade 2s. We’ve been doing rhythm and pitch. (Last Wednesday we started) to do rhythm sticks and then we’re doing some drums coming up right away. Then I have a little mini health unit and I’m going to be doing a few more health and science units coming up really quick.”

Like the other six interns, Pragnell is taking the first few weeks of her posting to watch, learn, ask questions and get to know the kids. The education students would then start to take over some classes before eventually moving into teaching the kids full-time for three weeks starting Nov. 10.

During this full-time teaching duty the interns’ cooperating teachers will complete an evaluation on them to help them improve their methods. The internship ends in December when the university students head back to their respective schools to complete their final year of their education degrees.

Toner, a 20-year-old University of Regina Faculty of Education student, said she is picking up a subject a week from Grade 3 teacher Chantal Walker Morey, but has been mainly teaching science so far. She said it’s been really easy to get to know the staff and students at Davidson School due to the small school atmosphere and welcoming spirit.

“Especially in the elementary school you know almost all of the kids already,” said Toner. “You’re seeing them when you’re out on supervision, you’re seeing them when you’re doing buses (and) you’re seeing them in the hallways. Then the staff, we had a week where we were just doing staff stuff where we had meetings, so you really got to know the staff then.”

Davidson School vice principal Cathy Rettger said the school usually gets a maximum of three interns each fall, so having seven new faces come into the school this year has been a bit different. She said the school is centrally located between Regina and Saskatoon and has a good reputation among previous interns, so that is why the school seems to be a popular destination for education students.

To read more please see the Sept. 30 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Sports

Sabers pounce on tired Raiders in the Jungle

The Hanley Sabers and Gull Lake Lions continued their dominance of the 1A Conference Three high school senior football league in week two, with the remaining teams looking to build on early season gains to solidify a final playoff spot.

Raiders vs. Sabers

The Davidson Raiders senior boys football team controlled possession of the ball during the first quarter of their 68-19 loss to the Hanley Sabers at the Jungle Sept. 20, but an inability to reach the end zone and an inexperienced defence proved their downfall.

Raiders coach Blair Frederickson said the Davidson offence had possession of the ball for around 10 to 11 minutes of the first quarter at their game in Hanley due to a strong short run and pass game. He said the problem was whenever the Sabers got the ball a quick score would result.

“We had the lead at the end of the first quarter, the start of the second quarter, and I bet we had the ball…10 or 11 minutes (in the first quarter) and they had the ball for one play,” said Frederickson, noting Hanley scored on that one play. Then “we kicked off to them, they got out to the 30, ran one play and put it in the end zone.”

Frederickson said at this point in early moments of the second quarter his offence started to get tired because they were on the field for most of the first 12 minutes, so when they stalled on their next play at the Hanley 40-yard-line and the Sabers ran one play on offence resulting in another touchdown the game was done. He said their Grade 12s on offence played a “great first quarter” and kept to the game plan of holding onto the ball and eating away at the clock, but their young defence couldn’t match up to Hanley’s strong passing game.

“The kids understood what we wanted them to do,” he said, adding Raiders safeties Cole Murfitt and Addison Ouellette played well in the second half. “Get to the outside (and) force Hanley to come back into the middle of the field where we have a shot at them. We just couldn’t make tackles. When we brought it back to the inside of the field the kids were just a little too small to make a big tackle, but they understood the overall concept of what we’re trying to get across.

“Take away the outside because in six-man football it’s such a wide field and it’s only six players, so you have to funnel everything into the middle if you can. We’re working on it.”

Mark Anderson, coach of the Sabers, said the Hanley coaching staff is concerned with their defence after the first quarter they suffered through against Davidson. He said they didn’t come out to play and the Raiders offence drove the ball down the field in the early going, but they were able to come back strong in the second quarter to combat the challenge.

“We just tightened up and (got) a little more aggressive,” said Anderson. “They’re a young team with guys playing both ways and they just wore down (and) got tired.

Anderson said they were able to get a lot of their younger players in during the second half and they have a “ton” of Grade 9 and 10 players on the team this year looking for starting positions, so giving them a chance to see game action provides hope for the future.

Frederickson said there were a lot of positives for his young players and his senior offence during the game, so if they can work on that they should be ready to put up a strong second half of the season and make a run for a playoff spot.

“There are a series of games now where whatever lessons we’ve learned the last few weeks playing, hopefully we’ll be able to use these to compete,” he said. “I’m hoping for success, but I’m confident we’ll compete at a higher level.”

To read more please see the Sept. 30 print edition of The Davidson Leader.