Category Archives: Sports

Craik, Sports

Craik youth prepares for national lacrosse tourney

Team Saskatchewan bantam lacrosse player Kane Nolting, 13, is heading to Winnipeg next month for the lacrosse national championships.

“This year we have a pretty good team, so I think we can get second or first in the B side or maybe third on the A side,” said Nolting.

This is the third time Nolting will suit up for Team Saskatchewan at the national championships, which will be played the first week of August. He played for the peewee team the last two years when the tournament was held in Toronto.

Nolting said the competition is pretty tough at nationals with clubs from B.C. and Ontario being especially good. He said the players on the team don’t have any set positions other than the goaltender, but he’ll be right in the play every game.

“Everybody plays offence and plays defence,” he said. “For a draw it (is) two guys in the middle and then they call them restraining lines and usually you put two guys on one side of the restraining line around the defensive side and then two guys on the offensive side. Whoever wins the draw depends on which way we go.”

Playing for the green and gold in Winnipeg would cap off a great year for the Craik School Grade 8 student. Nolting’s house league team, the Moose Jaw Mustangs, won both the Moose Jaw Kinsmen Lacrosse Association league championship this spring and the gold medal at provincials held July 5 to 7 in Regina.

Nolting scored the second goal in the Mustangs 7-4 victory in their provincial title win against the Regina Stealth on the final day of the tournament.

“Most of the teams (at provincials) we played before in Regina and some of them are pretty good teams, but we managed to win,” said Nolting.

The love of lacrosse came instantly to Nolting, even though he said his introduction to it came by accident. Nolting was playing spring hockey with a team out of Moose Jaw four years ago when an email was sent out to the players inviting them to a “come and try it day.”

Nolting, along with his younger brother Deacon, 12, and older sister Charly, 15, “just decided we were going to try it,” he said. “We went and we liked it, so we started playing.

“It’s just fun to run around and score goals and play defence. It’s lots of hitting. It’s really physical. It’s more physical than hockey and more interesting than baseball.”

Davidson, Sports

Sarich to compete at Western Canadians

The Saskatoon Raiders peewee A ball club is relying on some local help behind the plate this August as they try and capture the Western Canadian title.

Raiders back catcher Jamie Sarich, 14, said the competition at the Aug. 2 to 5 Under-14 Western Canadian Championships held in Prince Albert should be fierce as it brings together the best teams from Manitoba to B.C., but they have high hopes on doing well.

“It should be good games all around,” said Sarich.

The Raiders recently came in third place at the provincials’ tournament in Regina finishing with a 3-3 record. Before that the ball club won a silver medal June 25 in the peewee A division of the Saskatoon Minor Softball League as they lost a hard-fought final game to the champion Saskatoon Lasers.

Sarich said the season on a whole for the team so far has been “pretty good.” The Davidson School Grade 9 student said their hitting could improve, but the team’s overall defensive game have helped them better their competition.

“We got silver in all our tournaments except one and then silver in city playoffs,” she said.

Playing city league ball this year involved a lot of dedication on behalf of Sarich and her parents Lorne and Rhonda as they’re “gone six night a week” for practices and games, said Sarich, but the catcher and the rest of her team hope it all pays off with a Western Canadian title.

Kenaston, Sports

Tweet gets ready for fight of her career

A local mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter wants a knockout this Saturday at Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, MO, in what will be the biggest fight of her young career.

Kenaston native Charmaine “Not So Sweet” Tweet (4-3) is fighting Brazil’s Ediane Gomes (10-2) at Invicta FC 6: Coenen vs. Cyborg. The winner of the bout will determine the next challenger for the Invicta FC (fighting championships) featherweight crown.

“We’ve had some predictions from my camp that this could be my first knockout in MMA,” said Tweet. “My coach can really see me actually scoring the knockout on her and basically if it does go to the ground I have to be really conscious of her submissions and go for my own.”

Tweet, ranked sixth in the world, said she doesn’t know that much about her opponent, who is ranked second in the featherweight class, other than the Brazilian has a black belt in ju-jitsu and likes to strike. She said the fight against Gomes was up in the air until the last week of June and she is a last minute replacement for fellow Canadian fighter Julia Budd who had to back out due to a neck injury.

“I was told to stay ready, so basically what I’ve been doing is just going to my classes as usual and not training for any specific opponent, but training and staying loose and practising the techniques (of) ju-jitsu,” she said. “Now that we know who I’m fighting we can tailor it for the next two weeks to an opponent and come up with a game plan.”

Despite not knowing if this fight would happen, Tweet has been working hard with her coach Wiley BJJ out of Regina to prepare for it just in case. Since moving to the Wiley BJJ camp, Tweet’s ground game has improved mightily resulting in four wins out of her last five fights.

Tweet said other trainers kept telling her to stop fighting off her back, which went against her style of fighting. She said at her new gym they have let her develop her striking from the bottom philosophy.

“That is what I did in my last fight (against Amanda Bell June 1) and it worked really well for me,” said Tweet. “Just as I was striking her, and she didn’t really want too much more of that, I got lucky enough to steal the sweep and take the top position.

“Basically my style hasn’t changed too much. They’ve just worked more with the style I already have whereas at other gyms they tried to change it. It’s really a good fit where I am now because of lot of their philosophy is the same as mine going into MMA.”

To read more please see the July 8 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Sports

Red Sox peewee girls have “middle of the pack” ball season

The Davidson Red Sox peewee girls softball team finished off a short but successful season last month with a strong showing at a tournament in Moose Jaw.

“The girls played extremely well,” said Red Sox co-coach Rebecca Farrell, who was helped in the dugout this season by her husband Todd. “We ended up second in our pool, but didn’t make it to the final. You had to finish first in your pool to go on to the finals, but we were extremely pleased with how they played.”

Farrell said the Red Sox, who consist of Kylee Evans, Teryn Bristow, Breanna Shaw, Sarah Allan, Annika Ouellette, Miranda Farrell, Emily Read, Gracie Allan, Jessica Matheson and Brianna Jess, finished the season at that June 16 tournament due to the Saskatoon peewee B league playoffs being cancelled because of rain. She said the girls’ season usually starts in late April and ends in late June, but due to the long winter and the rainy late June weather this year was a bit different.

“We played our first game on May 10, so it was a really short season,” she said. “But we did play a lot of ball.”

In that five-week schedule the aged 14-and-under Red Sox managed to fit in 11 league games and four tournament games. The ball club went 5-6 at league play and 2-2 during the tournaments in Watrous and Moose Jaw.

“We were middle of the pack this year, so there were some teams that are stronger and some teams that are a little weaker than we are,” said Farrell about their league play in Saskatoon. “In general, the games that we played, the scores were all very close whether we won or lost, so it was a perfect place for us to be.”

Farrell said the team was “extremely young” this year and they had to include some 12-and-under Squirts ball players onto their team, but no matter the age the girls all came together to play some good baseball.

“They all seem to really enjoy playing ball,” she said. “They are just happy to be there and we had some good pitching and good back catching (by Teryn, Breanna, Gracie, Emily and Miranda).”

The Red Sox have historically been a strong club and that has not changed over the past few years playing out of Saskatoon, due to not enough ball clubs in this area to put together a league. Farrell said she expects next year to be just as good and they should be getting a few players back next season from this year’s team.

“The unfortunate part is we will lose some of the girls to different towns. We won’t have enough (girls) for a bantam team next year, which is 16-and-under girls ball. There just won’t be enough players here, so some of them will go play with other towns so that they can continue playing ball.”

Davidson, featured, Sports

Local martial artist to compete at worlds

James Morrison, 14, is heading to Bregenz, Austria, this September to compete for the honour of becoming a World Martial Arts Champion.

James is a member of the Canadian National Martial Arts team and has been selected to represent Sagayo School of Martial Arts at the 2013 World Martial Arts Games held Sept. 4 to 9 at Schendlinger Hall in Bregenz. The seventh annual games bring together 500 to 1,000 of the top martial artists in the world to compete in over 300 divisions encompassing the disciplines of extreme martial arts, grappling, karate, kickboxing, kung fu, sport jujutsu, taekwondo and others.

“I’ll be practising all summer (and) probably do two-hour practices more likely than one,” James said, noting he would be competing in the point sparring, kata and continuous sparring events. “During the summer I’ll go to Yolanda’s (Sagayo) house and she’ll help me out there.”

James said he qualified for the games after winning a gold medal in hand forms at the 2011 Pan American Martial Arts Games. He also finished first in kata at the 2011 Scheers Western Plains Tournament and won a silver medal in point sparring at the 2012 Can-Am Classic Open Martial Arts Tournament.

Sagayo said James has continuously entered into tournaments since he started training with her three years ago and always does well. She said it is expected James would place high at the worlds this fall too.

“He has done really good,” said Sagayo. “He works real hard and does a pretty good job. He is representing the Sagayo School of Martial Arts here in Davidson, but he is also representing Canada (at the worlds). It’s quite an exciting thing for him.”

The Sagayo School of Martial Arts in Davidson usually closes down for the summer months due to low membership during that time, but Sagayo said she would be offering James special lessons to get him ready for the tournament.

“He is going to come and train here in Girvin,” she said, adding they’ll likely practise outside in her front yard. “I told him I’m willing to train him for July and August until he goes in September, because you don’t want to have a holiday for two months and then go for that tournament. You have to train.”

Michelle Morrison, James’ mother, said the family is holding a fund-raising drive right now to try and come up with the estimated $2,825 that is needed to get her son to Austria for the five-day tournament and back again. She said James is contributing his savings of $300 and they are putting up $500 for the trip, but that still leaves them a little over $2,000 short.

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

Sports

Prairie Ice 98s dominate competition at Saskatoon City of Bridges tourney

The Sask Prairie Ice 98s peewee girl’s hockey team is dominating their competition this spring, thanks in large part to the outstanding play of their last line of defence.

Loreburn’s Jasey-Rae Book, 14, recently backstopped the team to a 3-1 win over Sask-Can in the gold medal game at the Saskatoon City of Bridges AAA hockey tournament. Jasey-Rae claimed MVP honours for the final game in the May 15-18 tournament winning a 28″ TV for her efforts.

“I have a high confidence level right now,” said Jasey-Rae, a Grade 9 student at Loreburn Central School. “The puck seems to keep out of the net.”

A hockey player since she was four years old at both the goaltender and forward position, Jasey-Rae is no stranger to big games. She is also a member of the Diefenbaker Thunder, who made it to the league final against the Fort Qu’Appelle Flyers earlier this spring.

Despite a strong effort, the Thunder suffered a 5-4 loss to the Flyers, but Jasey-Rae said it was a close back-and-forth affair.

With her summer team, the Prairie Ice, Jasey-Rae deflects credit for the team’s success just like the many pucks shot her way. She said the team is “really strong” defensively, which makes her job between the pipes pretty easy

She said they also have many offensive weapons on the team, so she knows if one does get by her or the team’s alternate goalie, Tatum Shand, the Prairie Ice would have an answer.

This was made obvious by the team’s strong tournament play this year finishing with silver in their earlier two tournament entries in Regina and Calgary before the gold medal triumph in Saskatoon.

This is Jasey-Rae’s fourth year on the Regina summer league team, whose lineup consists of players from numerous Southern Saskatchewan locales including Weyburn and Outlook. Over her years, she has also suited up for the Outlook IceHawks and Loreburn 19ers.

Jasey-Rae said summer hockey is different from winter hockey as the Prairie Ice is more of a “tournament team.” The club doesn’t play any regular season games and practices only on off weekends from tournaments in Regina.

Their season ends in June after a yet-to-be-confirmed tournament in Fargo, North Dakota, but the first task at hand for the club is duplicating their latest gold medal effort at their next tourney this weekend in Regina.

“I’d say we have a pretty good chance of winning the thing,” said Jasey-Rae, “but you never know.”