Former Canadian alpine ski team member Patrick Biggs poses with the skiers from the National Capital Secondary Schools Athletic Association at the provincial championships at Blue Mountain.

They made their mark on Blue Mountain.

Immaculata’s Monica Slobozianu won individual gold in the Level 2 girls slalom event, and athletes from South Carleton High School captured four team medals in the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association alpine ski championships.

Slobozianu was timed in 55.69 and 56.30 seconds for her two runs, and her total of 111.99 left her more than 1.8 seconds ahead of her nearest competitor.

Meanwhile, South Carleton skiers finished second in Level 1 girls slalom team standings and giant slalom and Level 2 boys slalom and third in Level 1 boys slalom. Those placings were based on the combined individual results of each school’s top three performers.

As well, the Storm’s Nick Howe deserves an “attaboy” or whatever they say these days after recording fourth-place finishes in the Level 2 boys slalom and giant slalom.

“You never really know what to expect,” Storm assistant coach Melody Murison said Wednesday afternoon, not that many hours after a bus rolled back into the capital region with the skiers from South Carleton, a Level 2 girls team from Louis Riel and individual athletes from Ashbury, Immaculata, Nepean and Mother Teresa. “There are really strong teams down there racing on their home hill, but, given our position in (National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association championships) and how we did there, we were hoping.”

Frequently the team that finished ahead of South Carleton, and everyone else, was that of Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Collingwood, so it really was a matter of home-course advantage.

For the record, South Carleton was fourth in Level 1 boys giant slalom and fifth in Level 2 boys giant slalom, while Louis Riel was fifth in Level 2 girls slalom and sixth in the same division in giant slalom.

Boarding gets its due, too

The team titles for the NCSSAA snowboarding championships went to Ashbury (girls) and Sacred Heart (boys).

Elmwood was second in girls competition, while Ashbury and Mother Teresa followed in line behind Sacred Heart.

Girls individual medallists, in order, were: Quincy Korte-King, Ashbury; Paige Tremblay, Elmwood; and Melissa Yella, Ashbury.

Boys individual medallists, in order, were: Milan Storivulak, Ashbury; Matt Gaines, Sacred Heart; and Jonthan Trimbrell, Ashbury.

Basketball, volleyball lineups set

The list of teams entered in the OFSAA girls volleyball and boys basketball championships on March 4-6 was completed early this week.

The Ashbury Colts went from winning the NCSSAA senior boys basketball championship on Feb. 21 and through a play-in contest against a Central Ontario opponent to earn a spot in the A provincials at North Bay.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal of Immaculata allowed tournament host De La Salle and unimpeded entry into the third spot for the NCSSAA in the AA girls volleyball tournament. The Cavaliers had lost a city semifinal, but now they will be joining the champion Gisele Lalonde Titans and Samuel Genest Laser in the 20-team competition. As well, L’Escale of Rockland and St. Michael of Kemptville are also entered.

With that many entries, it’s easy to see why the AA championship will be contested on four courts spread among De La Salle, Samuel Genest and La Cite Collegiale. The playoff matches will all be at De La Salle on March 6.

OK, so the email in-box has been getting a little more full with each passing day.

For that I blame Rachel Homan, Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk and Lisa Weagle, who had the temerity to win the Canadian women’s curling championship at Kingston, Ont., on Feb. 24. They’ll be heading to Riga, Latvia, on March 11 for the start of the world championship five days after that, and someone in between this intrepid correspondent will find his own way to the land of Kaspars Daugavins.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The triumph by Homan and Co. in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts meant some items got lost in the shuffle, among them the latest edition of the Ontario bantam curling championships in Ottawa.

Why should we care about the bantam curling championships, you ask?

Well, try this on for size: Homan and Miskew won four consecutive Ontario bantam titles in 2003-06, with Kreviazuk along for three of those championship runs and her sister, Lisa, capping the run as a member of the squad in 2006. Weagle, who’s a handful of years older than her current teammates, was also part of an Ontario bantam championship rink in 2003, when the skip was Lee Merklinger.

There were no capital-region champions in this year’s bantam provincials, though a team from the Huntley Curling Club in Carp came close. Skip Jordie Lyon-Hatcher, third John Willsey, second Jean-Michel Barrette and lead Bradley Cotten, tied for first in the round-robin at 6-1, but lost 8-6 to Matthew Hall’s foursome from Stroud in the boys tiebreaker.

The girls’ division title was also decided in a tiebreaker, with Jestyn Murphy and her teammates from Listowel defeating Kelly Hawa’s Bayview foursome 6-5.

Crowning the champions

Meanwhile, the parade of champions from National Capital Secondary Schools Athletic Association competition continues.

Among the most recent are the winners from the respective OFSAA hockey categories.

Louis Riel took the A/AA girls hockey final in the maximum three games, capped by a 4-3 decision on Monday. In AAA/AAAA, All Saints defeated South Carleton in that best-of-three final.

In boys OFSAA contact hockey, St. Joseph beat St. Matthew 3-1 in Game 3 on Tuesday to take the A/AA series in three games. In AAA/AAAA  Sacred Heart competed a two-game sweep with another 3-0 decision against Nepean in Game 2 on Tuesday.

The Tier 2 senior boys final between St. Paul and Immaculata was tied 1-1 heading for Game 3 on Wednesday.

As for non-OFSAA volleyball, Franco Ouest claimed the Tier 1 senior girls title by downing All Saints in straight sets in the final, while St. Francis Xavier ruled Tier 2 after beating Bell in that final.

The various junior boys and girls volleyball leagues wrap up regular-season play in early to mid-April.

Making a splash in Mexico

A group of Ottawa-area paddlers made themselves known during the Pan American Canoe Slalom Championships at Union de Tula, Mexico.

Cameron Smedley of Dunrobin settled for bronze in men’s C1 after a disputed penalty cost him the win in a tight race won by  Zachary Lokken of the United States. Argentina’s Sebastian Rossi took silver.  Zachary Zwanenburg of Cornwall was sixth and Ryley Penner of Lundbreck, AB just missing the final with an eleventh place result.

Smedley also teamed up with his coach, Michal Staniszewski, in the men’s C2 to capture a silver medal. Staniszewski, who had won an Olympic silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Games as part of the Polish team, retired from his competitive career after Sydney and moved to Canada to coach.

Thea Froelich of Ottawa was fifth in women’s K1 rankings, although Ottawa’s Kathleen Taylor was disqualified in the semifinals for an error in boat weight.

In men’s K1, 2012 Olympian Michael Tayler of Ottawa finished in fifth position.

A couple of golf buddies who tired of winter and headed to slightly less wintry Victoria recently returned from an extended sojourn to Arizona. I guess they tired of even the Victoria winter, even though that’s an oxymoron.

Being golf addicts, they took clubs with them, and they brought clubs back, and they made sure to clean those clubs before trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

Why, you may wonder, is that necessary? Well, given the number of Canadians who head to the U.S. and other countries for golf travel (and visitors from other countries that come to Canada), there are a lot of golf clubs crossing borders, and golf clubs are definitely  among the items that could be considered “not admissible into Canada.” if they are contaminated with soil from outside this country.

I’ve boldfaced some of the sections in the following statement I received from a Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman:

“Non-compliant goods will be refused entry and may be ordered removed from Canada at the first point of arrival under the authority of the Plant Protection Act and the Health of Animals Act. The CBSA administers the requirement on behalf of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) at ports of entry.

“Failing to declare that you have goods in your possession that may contain dirt or plants and food items can result in the seizure of the items and/or a penalty of $800 under the Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS), a civil penalty for non-compliance with customs legislative, regulatory and program requirements.

“The reason for this level of scrutiny is the soil or dirt can present a hazard to Canadian fauna and flora as a carrier for invasive species. These pests can wreak havoc on our ecosystems by destroying native species and causing unalterable damage to the Canadian landscape. For example, the emerald ash borer, native to Asia, has killed millions of ash trees across North America since it arrived in 2004, and will likely kill millions more. It probably entered Canada and the United States on untreated wood packaging materials, such as pallets or boxes.

“Plant pests can be introduced through various pathways, including wood packaging, soil and firewood, for example. In this case, the soil on the golf clubs or shoes is treated the same as some fruits and vegetables and other plants that cannot be imported to Canada because they may contain soil (and pests therein) that could cause damage to our ecosystems.”

There are no specific requirements for the cleaning of golf clubs used abroad and brought back into Canada, the statement added. Where “operational capacity” exists, golf clubs (and other items) contaminated with soil may be cleaned within a CBSA-controlled location at the arrival point by a “CBSA-approved mobile wash facility.”

What you need to know is that, if your clubs are cleaned at such a location, you bear the costs for the cleaning. Costs can vary from site to site, the spokeswoman said, and mobile wash facilities are not available at all ports of entry.

“When goods need to be cleaned — army boots from Afghanistan or golf clubs or anything else — they would be ‘quarantined’ and then would be cleaned in a controlled environment and conditions so that the dirt washed off is disposed of appropriately at an approved disposal facility,” the statement added.

By the way, the spokeswoman also said that it would be a good idea to remove compacted dirt from golf shoes or other footwear before returning to Canada.

You’ve been warned.

Another deal for Fritsch

One of Brad Fritsch’s former corporate sponsors has jumped back into play now that he has made it to the PGA Tour.

The 35-year-old tour pro, who grew up in Manotick, has signed a new endorsement contract with World Financial Group. The company previously backed Fritsch when he played on the Nationwide (now Web.Com) and Canadian (now PGA Tour Canada) tours.

Fritsch was already sponsored by a company called Merrat Asset Management, but his younger brother/agent, Stephen, says there’s no conflict. Merrat is about pension funds, and WFG is about family personal investments. The previous deals Marret, Titleist, Levelwear and the Ottawa Senators had essentially covered expenses for the 2013 season, so adding WFG is a bonus.

Brad Fritsch has made the cut in six of seven tournaments in his first year as a full PGA Tour member. His earnings of $232,655, including $12,294.54 for a tie for 39th in last weekend’s Puerto Rico Open, place him 85th on the season money list.

He is in the field for this week’s Tampa Bay Championship.

Brown three times golden at CIS track nationals

Ottawa’s Alicia Brown, a fifth-year student-athlete at the University of Toronto, was named Ontario University Athletics female athlete of the week on Monday after winning three gold medals in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport indoor track and field championships at Edmonton.

Brown first won the women’s 300 metres in 38.63 seconds, and then she helped U of T win gold in the 4×400-metre (3:42.90) and 4×200-metre relays, the latter team setting new CIS and Canadian records with its time of 1:36.53.

Lapping up the swim results

There were no team medals, but Ashbury College did place three of its squads in the top 10 of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations swim championships at Etobicoke, with second place in senior girls, seventh in open boys and ninth place overall.

The other leading results from other schools representing the National Capital Secondary Schools Athletic Association included: junior girls, Pierre Savard, 12th, and Immaculata, 13th; junior boys, St. Peter, tied for 10th; senior boys, Ashbury, 11th; open girls, Ashbury, 18th, and Pierre Savard, 19th.

gholder@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/HolderGord

The way I look at it, high school track and field is another fine example of multi-tasking.

Consider, for example, the cases of Hannah Kelsey-Smith and Remy Wade.

Kelsey-Smith, who attends Sacred Heart, finished first in junior girls long jump, triple jump and shot put during the May 16 National Capital Secondary Schools Athletic Association West Conference meet at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility.

Assuming she competes in all three events during the overall NCSSAA championships, also at Terry Fox on May 22-23, her schedule would look like this: triple jump starting at noon Wednesday; shot put starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday; long jump starting at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Wade, from Glebe Collegiate, was first in the midget girls 100 metres, second in the 200 and part of the first-place 4×100-metre relay team.

Kelsey-Smith and Wade aren’t alone, either. In the East Conference meet on May 15, Ashbury’s Victoria McIntyre placed first in the senior girls 100, 200 and 4×100 relay. The NCSSAA championship schedule shows those three events starting, respectively: Thursday at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (100 heats and finals); Wednesday at 11:20 a.m. and 1:50 p.m. (200 heats and finals); and Wednesday at 2:50 p.m. (relay).

Note to Ms. Wade: Since your schedule looks the same as Ms. McIntyre’s, maybe you should just follow her around at Terry Fox.

My point is to try to illustrate just how hectic things must have been during the East and West Conference meets and how hectic they will be again during the NCSSAA championships. I imagine a scene in which supervising teachers, administrators and volunteers spend a lot of time counting heads to make sure they don’t lose any students while trying to point them in various directions nearly simultaneously.

I don’t remember it being like that in my heyday (???) in track and field. Of course, I was as leadfooted as could be, so it wasn’t likely that I’d end up with medals of any kind, and it was back in a time when the track and field heros of the day included U.S. decathlete Bruce Jenner. (For those of you who don’t recognize the name, look up Montreal Olympic Games results or, better yet, Google-search his Wheaties box cover.)

I wasn’t at risk of having to plan a trip to the Manitoba high school championships, either, while it’s not far-fetched to imagine the trio of Ottawa-area athletes mentioned above making their way to Oshawa for the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association finals on June 6-8.

Good luck to them and their fellow competitors, assuming they can find their way to the starting line at the proper times and places.

Geoff Gowan dies at age 83

The Coaching Association of Canada announced that Dr. Geoff Gowan, a long-time broadcaster and former association president who played a key role in developing the National Coaching Certification Program, had died late Thursday in Halifax after a long fight with Parkinson’s disease. He was 83.

“Geoff was an outstanding leader in Canadian sport, and influenced thousands of athletes, coaches, and colleagues in sport management and the media,” John Bales, chief executive officer for the CAC, said in a media statement on Friday.

The association’s Geoff Gowan Award, which has been presented since 1996 in recognition of lifetime contribution to coaching development, was given to Ottawa’s David Hart (water polo) and Montreal’s Victor Zilberman (wrestling) in 2012. Other recipients have included Jack Donahue, Doug Clement, Al Morrow, Donald Dion, Charles Cardinal, Andy Higgins, Tim Frick, Allison McNeill, Lyle Sanderson, Dru Marshall and Keith Russell.

As a broadcaster, Gowan covered track and field for the CBC at the Olympic Summer Games and world championships.

He was named to the Order of Canada in 1992 in recognition of his contribution to sport in this country.

Human rights complaint hearing set

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has set June 24 as the date for a summary hearing into complaints filed on behalf of 19 students from Ecole secondaire Louis Riel.

The complaints allege that they will be discriminated against by the eligibility rules adopted by OFSAA in 2012 and scheduled to take effect in the fall of 2013.

The regulations say, in essence, that students who live outside normal Louis Riel boundaries and who choose to register for Sports Etudes programs at the Blackburn Hamlet school are ineligible for local and provincial high school competition in their designated “elite” sports for the duration of their time at Louis Riel. (The rules apply to all Sports Etudes and sport specific programs in Ontario, but I’m using Louis Riel as an example.) A hockey player couldn’t play hockey for the Rebelles, but could play soccer or basketball, and so on.

OFSAA jurisdiction starts with Grade 9, but students already in Grade 7 or 8 at Louis Riel (and similar schools) would be grandfathered by OFSAA when they reach that academic level.

In February, tribunal vice-chair Mary Truemner denied the complainants’ request for an interim decision overturning that section of OFSAA eligibility rules.

The June 24 hearing is actually a morning teleconference involving representatives of all parties. A trial adjudicator will determine whether there are grounds to move forward.

There were no changes made to the sport-program eligibility rules the OFSAA annual general meeting in April. In her February decision, Truemner said she was not convinced the applicants could prove that the rules violated their human rights.

gholder@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/HolderGord

It really isn’t all that surprising that high school track and field records could be older than the athletes who break them.

That was the case for four Glebe runners who erased a 21-year-old standard in the Eastern Ontario regionals last week.

Charlene Rhead, Courtney Dwyer, Claire Smith and Sydney Braun-McLeod covered four laps of the 400-metre track at Belleville in three minutes 59.55 seconds, qualifying as a stunning performance in more ways than one.

First, it knocked more than two seconds off the 1992 mark (4:01.87) established by a quartet of runners from Loyalist in Kingston. Second, Glebe won the senior girls’ 4×400-metre relay final by nearly eight seconds over Sydenham (4:07.31), with Colonel By in third place at 4:08.79.

The new Glebe record was one of eight posted in the final results, with two of them now belonging to Heather Jaros of La Salle Secondary School in Kingston.

Jaros won the junior girls 800 metres in 2:15.19 (previous record 2:15.25 by Lauren Moore of Holy Cross in 2004), and she led the way in the 1,500 with a time of 4:36.20, erasing a 2005 mark set by Hillcrest’s Danelle Woods.

Smith also beat Woods’ time of 4:39.24 with her clocking of 4:38.93, but that was only good enough for second place behind Jaros.

Carlee Cassidy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Russell surpassed her own 2012 record in the open girls’ 1,500-metre steeplechase, with her new time of 5:00.01 taking more than three seconds off the previous best at regionals, and Thousand Islands of Brockville beat its own regional record in the junior men’s 4×100-metre relay with a time of 45.08 (previously 45.34).

The other three new records all came in midget boys and girls competition.

Austin White of St. Michael in Kemptville now holds the mark in the 400 metres after clocking 52.41 seconds, a single hundredth of a second better than what Louis Riel’s Joel MacDonald ran in 2010.

Brianna MacDougall of Regiopolis in Kingston was timed in 4:44.32 in the 800 metres, trimming 0.87 off the mark set by Thousand Islands’ Emily Carmichael in 2012, and Katherine Herron of Bayside in Belleville leaped 10.90 metres to win the triple jump, seven centimetres past the previous best by Borden’s Divyajyoti Biswal in 2008.

Other times and distances were matched or beaten at Belleville, but those events were affected by wind speeds in excess of the maximum allowed for record-setting purposes.

The best of those in competition at Belleville will advance to the Ontario Federation of Secondary School Athletic Association championships at Oshawa on June 6-8.

Briefly

Stephane Pare (2-over-par 74) of Rivermead and Victoria Murray (98) of Rideau View were the leading players in an Ottawa Valley Golf Association junior field day at Pakenham Highlands.

Rideau View’s Bill Holzman, who last week won the OVGA senior men’s match-play championship, shot a 1-over 73 at Metcalfe on Monday to tie with Hylands’ Tom Hossfeld for top spot in a senior men’s field day.

Jenn Boyd, who coached the Algonquin Thunder to a shared Ontario Colleges Athletic Association women’s championship last season, has been named the new head coach of the University of Ottawa women’s rugby team. Before the Gee-Gees season begins, Boyd will travel to England with Canada’s under-20 women’s national team for the Nations Cup.

The Ottawa Invaders’ Northern Football Conference season started off with a crash. In a game delayed almost an hour by lightning in the area around Beckwith Park, the Invaders lost 27-16 to the Montreal Transit. The Invaders pay a visit to the Toronto Raiders this coming weekend.

 Elyse Archambault (72-69) won the Golf Quebec NIVO Women’s Players’ Cup at Royal Bromont.

Sports Officials Canada announced Tuesday that Beverly Boys (diving) of Surrey, B.C., and Jacques Gregoire (speed skating) of Montreal had been named the country’s top sports officials for 2013.

As well, Eldon Godfrey (diving) of Calgary was named winner of the Allen G. Rae Builders Award, and Hector Vergara (soccer) of Winnipeg was named recipient of the Ron Foxcroft Award for professional excellence.

The awards and inductions into the organization’s online Hall of Fame will take place in Ottawa on Sept, 21, during the Sport Officials of Canada annual conference at the Delta Ottawa City Centre.

Boys has been involved in the sport of diving for 46 years: 16 as a diver and coach and the past 30 years as a FINA “A Level” international judge.  She has judged at the highest levels of the sport, including four Olympic Games, five world championships and six Commonwealth Games.

Gregoire has been an official and instructor in speed skating for 24 years. He was added to the International List of Referees in 2004 and in 2009 was called to the ISU Championship List. Since then, he has received no less than three annual assignments to various World Cups and championships.

Godfrey has served as a diving official for 37 years. He has officiated in four Olympics, three world championships and several Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games, FISU Games, Alberta and Canadian championships.

Vergara was born in Chile, but grew up in Winnipeg. After playing soccer competitively for 10 years and recreationally for 30 years, he began officiating in1983.

He retired as a FIFA assistant referee in November 2011, capping 19 years on the FIFA list and involvement in 11 FIFA competitions, among them the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups. In total, he officiated nearly 150 international matches, including six CONCACAF Gold Cups, 2004 Olympics, 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, two FIFA Club World Cups, two FIFA U-20 World Youth Championships and two FIFA U17 World Championships.

Rights complaint hearing to resume in October

Speaking of officiating, but in an entirely different arena, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario says a summary hearing into a complaint on French-language students in the Ottawa area will resume Oct. 8.

The hearing, essentially a conference call involving participants in the case, began with one day in late June.

The complaints made on behalf of the students affiliated with Ecole secondaire Louis Riel alleges that their rights have been infringed by changes to the eligibility regulations of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations.

Those changes, which were approved at an annual general meeting in 2012 and are to take effect this fall, say that students who live outside the normal boundaries of a given school, but register at that school for a specific sports program, may not compete on behalf of the school in that designated sport.

For example, a hockey-playing student who registers at Louis-Riel for that schools Sports-Etudes hockey program, could not play for the Rebelles in hockey. However, the same student could represent the school in local and provincial competition in any other sport, such as track and field.

The summary hearing is intended to determine whether the case will proceed.

Michael Hurdzan shows off the new eighth green on the West Nine of the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club during a course tour on Oct. 22, 2013.

Disclaimer No. 1: I am a member of another Ottawa-area golf club.

Disclaimer No. 2: I have to trust much of what Michael Hurdzan tells me about his remake of the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club’s West and South Nines just because he’s an golf-course architect and I’m not.

The Ohio-based Hurdzan has been leading a makeover of the layout that was most recently re-designed by Canadian architect Tom McBroom only a generation ago. Hurdzan’s company was one of 22 that had been approached by the Hunt Club, and one of 13 that submitted bids.

Work began this summer on the West Nine, and there’s enough growth of the new grasses — and wheat — to believe Hurdzan and others when they say that it will be playable again next summer. That’s when work will begin on the South Nine, and it will be the summer of 2015 before all 27 holes — there’s also a North Nine — will be available for use by members and whatever tournaments the Hunt Club attracts.

Major national championships have been held many times on the course originally laid out by Willie Park, most recently the Canadian Women’s Open and its predecessor, the du Maurier Classic, in 2008 and 1994, respectively.

The heavily sloped greens produced by McBroom’s re-design led to much complaining on the part of the tour pros and leading amateurs in those championships and weren’t a hit with members during regular play, either. That’s a matter of opinion, obviously, but Hurdzan and Hunt Club superintendent Eric Ruhs say members really bought into the makeover when shown images from a study that revealed only 14 to 18 per cent of some putting surfaces could reasonably be used for flag positions, particularly given the normal speed of greens these days.

Following a course tour on Tuesday morning, Hurdzan described the member reaction this way:  “When you say that 12 to 20 per cent of the greens were useable, that meant that 80 to 88 per cent of the greens were unuseable, and what the heck are we maintaining it for.”

Hurdzan promises that the greens he’s leaving behind will, because of their gentle undulations with a maximum two- or 2.5-per-cent grade, offer at least 14 flag locations per hole. That remains to be seen once the grass has grown in and is mowed to playing height, but he’s the supposed expert on this stuff, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

Just as important to the redesign is the enlargement and relocation of the range and short-game practice area. Anybody who has ever driven along Hunt Club Drive will have seen the nets towering along the south side of the property to keep wayward practice shots from flying onto the roadway; most of them anyway. That should end with the relocation of the range to what used to be the fifth fairway.

The net posts will remain in place, at least for a while, because the first tee has been moved to the most southerly part of the property, where the range had been situated. Maybe those posts will eventally come down, maybe not.

The short-game practice area had been situated on the north side of the clubhouse, which is to say a good drive and short-iron shot from the range, not an insurmountable problem, to be sure, but not something that would ever be a hit with tour pros and others accustomed to spending hour upon hour sharpening their skills.

“Our goal was to make it both a competitive and member course, and it comes down to how you set it up,” Hurdzan said.

There are too many small details to go into in this space, but here are a few notes worth noting:

* The revamped West Nine will play to a par of 35, rather than the old 36, while the South and North will remain 36.

* There will be 14 new tee decks on the West and South, mostly, but not exclusively at forward positions.

* When they’re done, the West and South Nines used for championship and tournament play will measure roughly 4,000 yards from the very front tees and slightly more than 7,000 from the very back.

*Ruhs said about 4,000 rounds were played from the championship tees in a typical year, from a global total of 45,000 rounds on the 27 holes.

* The renovations will cost $2.4 million.

Now, I know you’re wondering that wheat, which has been planted in various spots. Hurdzan says it will add a dash of colour, particularly early in the golf season, and it will also provide an environmental benefit in that it will attract mice and birds and other animals wanting to feed on the mice.

As for whether the Hurdzan redesign would make Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club the potential site of another major national championship or pro tour event, that’s a really big unknown.

I’ve told lots of people I don’t believe there’s any course in the National Capital Region capable of playing host to the men’s Canadian Open. Partly that’s from having seen first-hand the space and infrastructure required for that PGA Tour event, partly it’s because of past comments by Golf Canada officials who have expressed the view that there are only a handful of major markets in this country — the likes of Greater Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, with Calgary also on that list except for the lack of a suitably long layout — where the Open is likely to take place.

That does leave the possibility of bringing to Ottawa the Canadian Women’s Open, which in one form or another has been held in the region three times in the past 19 years; the other was the last du Maurier Classic at Royal Ottawa in 2000.
Ottawa Hunt GM Theo Mayer said there was no hard and fast proposal or plan for such an event at this time, but he added:

“In the last year, we have had several consultations with Golf Canada where they were considering us for future national events, and we are thrilled that they are considering us.”

By the way, Mayer said Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club could play host to a men’s Open, as it had many, many years ago, though I still think he’s wrong about that.

As for the severe slopes on the greens designed by McBroom, the slopes that were panned by club members and tour pros alike, Mayer speaks cautiously.

“They just didn’t fitwith what the club needed,” Mayer said, “but (McBroom) is still a great architect, and I wouldn’t want anything other than that being said.”

Tellingly, though, McBroom’s company was not one of the 22 asked to submit bids for the current redesign.

OUA Golf Championship Results

Western and Toronto were the men’s and women’s Ontario University Athletics golf champions after two rounds of play in undoubtedly fall-like conditions at Waterloo on Monday and Tuesday.

Western compiled total scores of 287 and 295, using the best four of five rounds, for a sum of 582, two strokes better than Toronto (299-290) in the men’s division.

Ottawa (304-315) was ninth among men’s teams, and Carleton was 14th (324-308).

In women’s play, using the best three of four rounds, Toronto (234-245) edged Waterloo (239-241) by a single stroke. Carleton (252-258) placed fourth.

National amateur team member Chris Hemmerich of Guelph won the men’s individual title by four strokes after shooting matching rounds of 69. Waterloo’s Devon Rizzo was women’s individual champion after shooting 73-74, leaving her seven strokes ahead of the field, with Ottawa’s Kiersten Klekner-Alt (77-78) in third place.

The best of the Carleton women’s team was Samantha Coates (82-77), who tied for fifth. Also on the Ravens roster were Sheila McKeen (80-82), Eva Johnston-Iafelice (90-99) and Emily Boyko (96-100).

Tops among the Ottawa men’s team members was Taylor Collins (75-74), who tied for 12th. Other Gee-Gees included Adam Kingsbury (75-78), Jake Craven (79-78), Erik Lachance (77-85) and Domenick Coyle (77-88).

Kolton Kowalchuk was Carleton’s best in men’s competition, tied for 22nd after shooting 77-74. Also on the Ravens team were Albert Johnson (80-75), Ben Brayman (78-79), James Oliver (89-80) and Tyler Watson (89-87).

High School Golf Results

Apparently they play some pretty good golf at Bill Crothers Secondary School in Unionville.

Students from Bill Crothers won the individual and team championships of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations boys championships at Essex on Oct. 16-17 and also the individual title in the girls’ golf “festival” at Barrie on Oct. 17.

Maxwell Sear shot rounds of 73 and 69 to win the boys individual title by one stroke over John Boncoddo (72-71) of St. John’s College in Brantford. The leading golfer from the Ottawa region was Ashbury’s Ian Wilson, who tied for 18th at 79-75–154.

Bill Crothers took the team title with a two-day total of 449, three strokes ahead of St. John’s. Ashbury was 10th at 484.

Selena Costabile of Bill Crothers won the girls’ individual championship with a 72, one ahead of Kingsville’s Alyssa Getty and Crystina Kertsos of St. Mary Catholic Secondary School. Ashbury’s Julia Malone tied for 12th at 81.

The girls team title was based on regional entries, with York Region (226) finishing ahead of Eastern Ontario (Kingston, at 240).

Another crop of senior girls basketball and senior boys volleyball champions were crowned this past week following National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association finals.

Here are the results:

Girls Basketball
AAA/AAAA final: Louis Riel 42, St. Peter 26
AA final: St. Matthew 60, St. Francis Xavier 45
Tier 1: Franco Ouest 46, Ashbury 31
Tier 2: Colonel By 46, Notre Dame 40

Boys Volleyball
AAA/AAAA: Lisgar defeated Longfields-Davidson (set scores unavailable)
AA: Samuel Genest defeated Franco Cite 3-1 (both schools going to provincials anyway)
OFSAA play-in match: Glebe defeated Beatrice Desloges 3-0
Tier 1: Cairine Wilson defeated De La Salle 3-1
Tier 2: Pierre Savard vs Sir Wilfrid Laurier, result of Thursday match unavailable as of Saturday.

In some cases, the participating teams in the finals were already qualified for Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations championship tournaments this coming week, but the results could affect their seedings in those events.

As well, as noted above, there was a “play-in” game for a third NCSSAA volleyball berth in provincials.

The A, AA, AAA and AAAA girls basketball OFSAA tournaments are slated for Nov. 21-23 at, respectively: North Bay, Thunder Bay, London and Mississauga.

The A, AA, AAA and AAAA boys volleyball championships will take place at: Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor, London and Belle River/Windsor.

Don’t forget, either, that the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Lancers will play their OFSAA boys football bowl game against the Crestwood Mustangs of Peterborough at Etobicoke on Tuesday, Nov. 26.

The Gisele Lalonde Titans claimed their fourth consecutive Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations girls volleyball championships in the AA tournament at Thunder Bay on March 3-5.

The Titans defeated Stratford Central 25-14, 25-15, 22-25, 25-23 in the championship final.

They were one of a small number of National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association representatives to return home from their prospective provincials with medals.

The Glebe Gryphons received silver medals after losing 25-12, 18-25, 20-25, 25-15, 15-12 to Bishop Allen of Etobicoke in the AAAA girls volleyball final at Barrie.

The Louis Riel Rebelles also came home with silver after a 25-19, 25-16, 25-21 defeat against West Elgin in the A final at Richmond Hill.

At Kingsville, site of the AAA volleyball tournament, the Franco Cite Faucons defeated Lisgar 25-20, 25-12, 25-18 in the consolation final.

The best of the NCSSAA results in boys basketball provincials came at Perth, where Merivale claimed bronze with a 57-43 victory against St. Francis of St. Catharines. Kevin Metelus topped Merivale with 19 points in that game.

The St. Patrick Fighting Irish lost the AAA bronze-medal game 52-48 to St. Theresa’s of Midland. That tournament was at Welland.

Meanwhile, the OFSAA wrestling championships were held at Brampton. A half-dozen athletes from Eastern Ontario earned medals: Augusta Eve of Hillcrest, gold in girls 44 kilos; Quinlan Walker of Canterbury, gold in boys 83 kilos; Liam McFadyen of St. Paul, silver in boys 57.5 kilos; Therese El-Lati of Louis Riel, silver in girls 64 kilos; Jake Cartman of Renfrew, silver in boys 67.6 kilos; and Torin McFadyen of Elizabeth Wynwood, silver in boys 51 kilos.

Silver medal for Ottawa biathlete at junior worlds

Ottawa’s Alexandre Dupuis, Alberta’s Aidan Millar and Quebec’s Jules Burnotte combined to earn a silver medal in the International Biathlon Union youth/junior world championships at Presque Iles, Maine.

They finished behind only a trio from Russia.

Earlier in the championships, Dupuis placed fifth in a field of 63 in the individual competition.

Results from junior alpine ski worlds in Slovakia

Wakefield’s Mikaela Tommy and Chelsea’s Chris Steinke wrapped up their week-plus stints in the world junior alpine ski championships at Jasna, Slovakia.

Tommy was 17th in women’s giant slalom, did not finish her run in women’s slalom, placed 34th in super giant slalom, DNF in super combined and placed 41st in women’s downhill.

Steinke was 39th in men’s super-G, 19th in super combined, 20th in downhill, 52nd in slalom and DNF in giant slalom.

As a student at South Carleton High School, Blake Claydon didn’t know alpine ski racing was an after-school sports option.

A recreational skier, Claydon, who played his sports in the community, must have missed the PA announcement about the ski team. But when the 41-year-old returned to the Richmond high school in 1999 as a teacher, he was the one making the announcements, recruiting the students, and selling them on the logic of racing down a mountain.

“I never raced (as a student), but I picked it (coaching) up, attending clinics, watching and learning,” said Claydon, who’s entering his 17^th year as head coach of the Storm’s exemplary alpine ski program. “Once I learned something, I don’t forget it. I built a program and it seems to work.”

Work is an understatement. South Carleton’s results at the past 16 National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association and Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ championships are enviable.

South Carleton and Jean Vanier Catholic High School in Collingwood have the best Level 1 programs in the province for school-trained student-athletes. Claydon’s program is almost exclusively for skiers who have learned alpine ski racing through high school coaching. The Level 2 program is for club-trained student-athletes.

Since 1999, Claydon’s dryland and twice-a-week, on-hill training program has qualified 16 teams for the provincial high school championships. All but one of those teams has raced in Level 1 giant slalom and slalom races.

On the scoreboard, South Carleton has earned 21 Level 1 team medals at the OFSAA championships (six gold, 11 silver, four bronze). Claydon also has watched his skiers win 12 individual OFSAA medals (six gold, three silver, three bronze).

“One thing I’m proud about is there have been 60 different (South Carleton) athletes attend OFSAA and 56 have come home with a medal,” he enthused. “They came home with something. There were successful. They just didn’t participate.”

At the NCSSAA city championships, South Carleton has been the dominant Level 1 team. The Storm have won a combined 33 boys and girls’ slalom and giant slalom team titles as well as five silver and 10 bronze medals. Individually, South Carleton skiers garnered 22 gold medals.

The road back to the podium started this week with the team’s first meeting. When Claydon recruits, he sells the students on his team’s family atmosphere and a consistent program, where the seniors help the rookies and parents volunteer to help the coaches.

Claydon was attracted to alpine ski coaching because he had a chance to introduce students to a new sport.

“Ninety-five per cent of the kids have not raced,” he said. “But they compete in their own category and I can sell them on that. They don’t need to be a racer. They’re excited to go.”

Claydon also has coached South Carleton to one Tier 1 and three Tier 2 NCSSAA baseball titles in 11 years, and co-coached the Storm to two NCSSAA girls’ hockey titles and two OFSAA Festival bronze medals.

In the classroom, the Carleton University commerce grad entered teams in the CA-Sprott Business Competition at his alma mater, winning the top prize in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly on Wednesdays in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Glebe Collegiate athletes combined Saturday for an unprecedented performance at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ cross-country running championships in Waterloo. For the third straight year, the Gryphons won the girls’ overall team title, while the boys posted their best-ever result, a second (two points out of first). Glebe sent five teams to the six age-group races and produced five top-three team results — gold in girls’ senior, silver in girls’ junior and midget, and bronze in boys’ senior and junior. Mei Mei Weston won the Gyphons’ only medal, a bronze, in the girls’ midget race, while Beth Rhead was fifth. Defending silver medallist Claire Smith, slowed by injury recovery, was sixth in girls’ senior and Katherine Marshall was eighth. Teagan Harris was eighth in boys’ junior. Meanwhile, Louis Riel’s Jonathan Rioux was ninth in boys’ junior, and Theekshana Jayanetti and Hamam Qwider, both of Woodroffe, were ninth and 10^th respectively in the para race.

• Shona McCulloch of Longfields-Davidson Heights joined an exclusive group Saturday at the OFSAA cross-country running championships, winning the girls’ junior title a year after taking the girls’ midget gold medal. The Grade 10 student became the eighth runner since 1973 to win the midget-junior double. That list includes former Bell runner Mary Jane Richards, the 1991 midget and 1992 and 1993 junior champion. If McCulloch can win gold in her final two years as a senior, she will become the first female runner in OFSAA history to win championships in four straight years. Kathy Butler owns the record for most gold at four, but over five years at Waterloo Collegiate Institute — midget in 1987, junior in 1989 and 1990 and senior in 1991.

• Julia Malone of Ashbury made history by becoming the first National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association athlete to win the gold medal at the OFSAA girls’ golf festival in Kingsville. After finishing with a two-over-par 75, she defeated Haley Barclay of Strathroy on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff for the title. Grace Howie, formerly of Earl of March, had the NCSSAA’s best previous OFSAA result at fifth in 2011. At the OFSAA boys’ golf championships in Stratford, Nicholas Brisebois of Holy Trinity was the NCSSAA’s best in sixth at one-over-par 72-71-143.

• Three days after being named CIS women’s rugby coach of the year, Jen Boyd took her University of Ottawa Gee-Gees to the Canadian university championship bronze-medal game, but lost 17-5 to McMaster University. St. Francis Xavier University outscored McMaster 43-34 in the final as former University of Ottawa player Caitlain Blanchard scored a try for SFX. Gee-Gees’ Allison MacCormack was named to the all-tournament team.

• While her brother Teagan competed for Glebe at the OFSAA cross-country running championships, freshman Rowan Harris served as backup goalkeeper as the University of British Columbia defeated host University of Toronto 2-0 to win the CIS women’s field hockey final.

• Ottawa Beaver Boxing Club’s Kaitlyn Clark earned the women’s 64-kilogram class silver medal at the Elite Canadian boxing championships in Toronto, losing 3-0 to national team member Sara Kali of Quebec. In the semifinals, Clark upset Canadian champion Marie-Eve Dicaire of Quebec 2-1.

Think of the sports nickname Ravens in Ottawa and the first club name that comes to mind is Carleton University.

But the time has come to expand our horizons and welcome a new team into the nest. The Longfields-Davidson Heights Secondary School Ravens took the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association by storm this fall.

Not many schools, if any, can claim they won, all in one athletic season, three NCSSAA team titles, reached another two gold-medal finals, qualified for four Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ championships and have one multi-talented athlete capture a city and provincial title in an individual sport for the second straight year.

But the Ravens certainly can. And the Nepean school only opened in 2009.

“We’re ecstatic with the way things have gone with the results,” beamed athletic director Joel Graham, “but more so with the way the school has responded to developing the culture and brand (of athletics).”

Here’s the summary of the Ravens’ unprecedented success, given the school won its first two NCSSAA titles last year and qualified for its first OFSAA championship:

• Girls’ varsity field hockey, Tier 1 — tied for first place in their west conference regular season at 4-0-2, defeated Nepean 2-1 in playoff quarterfinals, Merivale 1-0 in the semifinals and Ashbury 1-0 in the final; recorded one tie and two losses at the OFSAA championship;

• Boys’ senior soccer, AAA/AAAA, OFSAA Division — first place in their division in regular season at 7-0-0, defeated John McCrae 2-0 in playoff semifinals and Mother Teresa 1-0 in the final; qualified for OFSAA in June, 2015, in Richmond Hill;

• Girls’ senior basketball, OFSAA Division — third place in their division in regular season at 7-3, defeated Mother Teresa 65-40 in playoff semifinals and St. Francis Xavier 56-42 in the final; lost first two championship-round elimination games at OFSAA, but then went 1-1 in consolation round, reaching the semifinals;

• Boys’ senior volleyball, OFSAA Division — third place in their division in regular season at 7-3, defeated Glebe 3-0 in playoff semifinals and lost to Lisgar 3-0 in the final for second straight year; qualified for OFSAA AAAA championship, going 1-2 in their round-robin pool, and 1-1 in the consolation round, reaching the semifinals;

• Cross-country running — Shona McCulloch, won the NCSSAA girls’ junior race by 56 seconds; captured the OFSAA girls’ junior gold medal by five seconds. She also played on the Ravens’ field hockey team.

The Ravens were denied a fourth NCSSAA team championship, when they lost to St. Patrick’s in the boys’ Tier 1 final of the inaugural rugby sevens season.

What accounts for such impressive success? Graham points to the student/athletes and teacher/coaches and applauds them for buying into the athletic program’s purple culture and pride.

“It’s our kids and how they commit to the program . . . and the coaches, who built the enthusiasm,” said Graham, who also maintains an impressive website for the school’s sports program.

Longfields-Davidson, school population of more than 1,200, attracted 173 students, 14 more than last year, for its nine fall athletic programs. The Ravens’ also had 24 coaches, including 22 teachers. The majority of the coaches have university experience.

“We were overwhelmed with kids this fall,” he added. “It’s hard to turn kids away. The girls’ junior basketball team has 19 players. Those numbers are high, but it’s consistent with Sport Canada’s (Long-Term Athlete Development) policy to keep young kids in the program.

“We try to sell it to our kids through simple success. We print images. We sell culture purple. You can’t turn the corner without seeing purple.” Purple is the new gold this fall.

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Ottawa residents were on the two University of Toronto gold-medal water polo teams. All-star Danielle Hirsh contributed to the Varsity Blues 8-2 win over U of O for a sixth OUA women’s title. The Blues roster also included All Saints’ grad Olga Bednarek. The championship all-star honour roll also featured Chantal Ouellette of U of O, and Kaity Sennema of Carleton. Toronto shaded Carleton 7-6 in the men’s final, allowing Liam Horrigan and Aidan Robern to celebrate the Blues’ 30^th men’s title. U of O’s Almin Klino was the championships’ most valuable goalie, while Jovan Dabic of U. of O. was an all-star along with Carleton’s Dusan Boskovic and Rodrigo Rojas.

• Jake Bryson of Dunrobin and the Eagle Creek Golf Club has been promoted to Team Ontario by the Golf Association of Ontario from the GAO Regional Team Program. The GAO’s 2014-15 Team Ottawa U17 high performance program squad will include Isabella Landry (11 years old), Cameron Belanger, Christopher Carwardine, and Keenan McPhail, all of Ottawa; Logan Henry of Kemptville; James Parsons of Almonte; and Dylann Armstrong of North Gower.

• Former Wakefield resident Peter Goodman of Brockville, the former Alpine Canada domestic program director, has been inducted into the Canadian Ski Coaches’ Federation Hall of Fame, joining Ottawa and area peers Kim Rawley, J.P. (Jeep) Picher, Don Lyons and Jamie Rosewarne.

There are moments in sports when you have to stop, shake your head and say: “Wow! How did that happen?”

Here’s a perfect example. It involves a brother and sister who have trained in the rarely seen, five-discipline sport of modern pentathlon. For many years, they have pursued the matching goal of competing in the 2015 Pan Am Games July 10-26 in Toronto. They travel together by sharing a hand-me-down Hyundai Elantra, which now has more than 500,000 kilometres on the odometer.

Thirty hours a week for a decade, Mathea Stevens, 23, has been training. She has been on Canadian junior and senior teams and is just about to graduate from the University of Ottawa in business. A year ago, it seemed a certainty she would represent Canada at the Games.

Garnett Stevens, now 21, started the sport at age 12, racking up the hours. By 16, he had had enough. He broadened his athletic horizons to other sports. But after a three-year hiatus, he returned to modern pentathlon and for 18 months, Garnett has been training full time.

Then came Games qualification. Mathea hit several unexpected bumps in one domestic and two World Cup meets. As a final-year junior, Garnett is essentially entering the on-ramp to the major senior competitions. But he scored well in the trials.

When Pentathlon Canada presented its five-athlete team for approval, guess who made the grade?

Garnett proved his supporters right by making the Games team, on which he’s the only junior (under-22) of two men.

Mathea is an alternate on a strong female side. Instead of competing, she expects to be helping her father bring in the hay on the family farm in Rockland.

Garnett Stevens

When the team was announced, there was awkwardness between brother and sister.

“She worked so long and I had stepped back. There are not many strong men in Canada. It happens. Mathea had a bad year (qualifying) at the worst possible time,” Garnett says. “But I understand she is happy for me.”

Mathea, 23, is thrilled Garnett made such a successful return to the sport. But she is also crushed she is on the sidelines.

“To be frank, I didn’t expect to be an alternate I expected to be on the team and solidly hoping to have an Olympic berth. It was totally unexpected. But I didn’t pull through during the qualifying period.”

The top five males and females at the PanAm Games (one athlete per country) earn a berth in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Modern pentathletes are measured in five different sports in one day — fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping and the combined running and shooting, using a laser gun.

During his teen years away from modern pentathlon, Garnett bulked up to 185 pounds and experienced house league and competitive soccer, a variety of offensive and defensive positions for the Colonel By and Glebe high school football teams, and rugby with the Bytown Blues. Now back in modern pentathlon, a slimmer Garnett is looking to shed another five pounds from his 160-pound multi-sport frame.

“I met up with my (former) coach John Hawes and he said I had a real possibility of going to the Pan Am Games and the (2016) Olympics. I said I’d give it a go,” Garnett said.

“Mathea never stopped training. I saw her travel and heard her talk about training and travel and there was a hint of jealousy. It would be fun. I missed it. It really was the right (decision to come back). I have done so much in the last seven months. I think I have travelled six times. It’s well worth it.”

Garnett will also compete in his first world junior championships Aug. 2-10 in Mexico City.

“I’m still a young guy,” said Garnett. “I’m going in excited and I’ll try to take a good step forward (at the PanAms). I don’t have big expectations. I don’t expect a medal. If it happens, it happens. If not, I won’t be sad.”

As for Mathea, who will take a break from competition this summer, the 2016 Rio Olympics are still in her sights.

“It’s not the end of the world for Olympic qualifying,” she said. “I felt a lot of pressure coming into the (2015) competitive season. I got a little burned out training so hard, not physical burn out, but emotional burn out.

“It’s training the patience. I have to relax when I have the pressure. It’s all maturity.”

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

PAN AM GAMES NOTES

• Show jumper Ian Millar of Perth and the Pan Am Games go hand in hand. Millar, 68, has been named to the Canadian equestrian team for his 10th consecutive Games, which started for him in 1979 and have spanned five decades. He has won nine medals — two gold and one bronze individually, and one gold, four silver and one bronze on the team side.

• Ottawa Rowing Club will have two of their best athletes vying for Pan Am medals. Kate Goodfellow of Perth will be in women’s quad sculls with Carling Zeeman of Cambridge, Antje von Seydlitz of Smithers, B.C., and Kerry Maher-Shaffer of Welland. Rosie DeBoef will team with Kristin Bauder of Langley, B.C., in women’s pair.

• Alexandra Bruce moved to Ottawa from Toronto for the final six months of her training with the R.A. Badminton Club. She was one of the big newsmakers for Canada at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, placing fourth with Michelle Li in women’s doubles, the best-ever badminton result by a Canadian at the Games.

• Canadian women’s baseball team members, outfielder Jenna Flannigan of Cornwall and pitcher Melissa Armstrong of Saskatoon, have connections to rival Ottawa universities. Flannigan is pursing her masters degree in human kinetics at the University of Ottawa, while Armstrong is a second-year PhD student in South African history at Carleton University.

• Rookie LPGA golfer Brooke Henderson’s favourite pre-competition meal is an omelette with peppers, ham and tomatoes with a bowl of fruit. It only seemed like yesterday Henderson won the 18-hole OFSAA girls’ golf festival at Loch March Golf and Country Club by five strokes with an even-par 70 on a cool and rainy day. She was a Grade 9 student.

• The Canadian women’s karate team at the Games will have plenty of Ottawa-Gatineau representation — Camelie Boisvenue, Jasmine Landry, Kamille Desjardins and Orleans-born Kate Campbell of Fredericton. Boisvenue has had good success at the Pan Am level of competition — gold at the 2012 youth championships, silver in junior in 2014 and silver in her senior debut this year.

• Erin Rafuse of Halifax, who will serve as skip for the women’s 49er FX boat with Danielle Boyd of Kingston graduated from Carleton University in 2013 with a BA in psychology. She’s a sound sleeper, needing five alarms to bring her to attention.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association student/athletes won 23 medals at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ track and field championships, and four at the provincial soccer and rugby championships. The gold medallists were:

South Carleton’s Lauren Gale, girls’ midget, 200 metres, 400 metres, 300-metre hurdles; Glebe’s Claire Smith, girls’ senior, 1,500 metres and 3,000 metres; St. Matthew’s Keira Christie-Gallaway, girls’ junior, 80-metre hurdles, 11.24 seconds, OFSAA record; St. Mark’s Larissa Brown, girls’ open visually impaired, 100 metres, 14.01 seconds, OFSAA record; Glebe girls’ senior 4×100-metre relay (Olivia Eaman, Remy Wade, Megan Frost, Maya Kamah); Canterbury’s Erinn Stenman-Fahey, girls’ senior, 800 metres; Longfields-Davidson Heights’ Shona McCulloch, girls’ junior, 3,000 metres; All Saints’ Haley Adams, girls’ junior, high jump; and Glebe’s Mei Mei Weston, girls’ midget, 3,000 metres as well as Louis Riel girls’ senior soccer team, AA division, 7-0 record, 22 goals for, one goal against.

• Glebe Gryphons won four gold and one bronze medals, after qualifying for seven finals at the Canadian Secondary School Rowing Association championships in St. Catharines. Graham Connell and Alex Bernst posted gold medals in senior men’s double and coxed four with teammates Chris Clarke, Jonathan Hamilton and coxswain Khalil Diabas.

• Hayley Watt and Gillian Cross had a matching two-victory performance, dominating the women’s senior double and quad with Jasmine Chase and Micah Winter. Glebe’s Gillian Henderson and Katie Clarke were bronze medallists in the women’s senior lightweight double, while Sophie Ackert and Laura Morrison of Elmwood were the silver winners.

• Ottawa was well represented at last week’s FIBA Americas men’s U16 basketball championship in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, as Canada won the silver medal, falling to a late charging United States team 77-60 in the final. Canada led 21-3 early in the second quarter, but the U.S. dominated the fourth 28-9 for the win. Noah Kirkwood of Ottawa Next Level and Ashbury College was a starting shooting guard, while University of Ottawa’s men’s head coach James Derouin was an assistant to national team head coach Dave DeAveiro, the former Gee-Gees men’s head coach. Kirkwood recorded 53 points, 26 rebounds, seven steals and five assists in five games.

• Olympic gold medallist Glenroy Gilbert of Ottawa has returned to coach the Canadian men’s 4×100-metre relay team through the 2015 world athletics championships in Beijing. Gilbert coached the team to the bronze medal at the 2013 worlds.

• Gatineau twins Khaleann and Audrey-Ann Caron Goudreau have left Vanderbilt University and the Commodores women’s basketball program, after their freshman seasons. Khaleann, who only played three games with the Commodores because of injury, recently accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Texas. She will sit out the 2015-16 season because of NCAA transfer rules.

• Gatineau and area bowlers filled all 12 boys’ and girls’ bantam, junior and senior individual and team spots for the Youth Bowling Congress national five-pin championships and excelled by winning two gold, two silver and three bronze medals. Individually, Kelyanne Beauchamp was the girls’ senior champion, Maude Durand was the girls’ junior silver medallist and Lukas Leblanc earned the boys’ bantam bronze. The team medallists were: Paris Bowl, boys’ senior, gold; Salon de Quilles le Carrefour, girls’ bantam, silver, boys’ bantam, bronze, and girls’ junior, bronze.

• Samuel Zakutney of the National Capital Boys’ Gymnastics Academy placed third all-around and won the silver medal in the horizontal bar event final in the boys’ junior class at the recent Canadian artistic gymnastics championships in Gatineau. . . . Zacharie Cheng-Boivin of Ottawa finished second in the men’s U18 minus-55-kilogram class at the Canadian judo championships. . . . The Ottawa Valley Golf Association crowned its 2015 match play champions, after three days of competition in Smiths Falls — Chris Collins of Rideau View defeated William Lecky of Cornwall 2 and 1, open class; and Rick St-Denis, a public golfer, defeated Tom Hossfeld of Hylands 1 up, men’s senior. . . . Ottawa’s George Findley has been named to the umpiring team for the world men’s softball championship June 26 to July 5 in Saskatoon. . . . University of Montreal’s Vicky Savard of Ottawa has been selected to play for Canada at the Summer Universiade July 3-14.

• Player of the year Johnny Berhanemeskel and Caleb Agada, both of the University of Ottawa, will be two of the dozen 2014-15 CIS all-stars who will wear Canadian men’s basketball colours in Korea. Laurentian University head coach Shawn Swords, formerly of Ottawa, will be an assistant coach. . . . . Corey Johnson of Ottawa has been named to the national junior men’s basketball team for the world championships June 27 to July 5 in Crete, Greece.

Sometime during the 1991-92 school year, student Brent Doxtater approached Julian Hanlon, former St. Mark Catholic High School principal about starting a football team at the four-year-old school. With football blood running through his veins, he approved the idea, after careful consideration.

Needing a head coach, he immediately thought of Paul Brown, a young teacher who was a notable player at St. Patrick’s High School under Jim Daley and then Brookfield High School under Jim Stronach as well as a linebacker at Simon Fraser University. Brown really just wanted to be a position coach, but Hanlon saw him more as a head coach.

As Brown, 53, would later say: “You don’t say no to the principal.”

During the past 24 autumns, Brown and his coaching staff, which included an equally dedicated Pat Kelly for the same number of years and Andrew Castellarin for the past 15 years, developed one of the most accomplished football programs in the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association. The Lions have only been outperformed by their nemesis, the St. Peter Knights, who have won 12 senior NCSSAA titles and two National Capital Bowl games in the past 21 years under Jim Mick.

Under Brown’s direction, the Lions qualified for 13 NCSSAA senior championship games (1999-2007, 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015), managing one title celebration in 2006. But what a year that was for the Lions, who defeated Almonte District in the regional playdown and Frontenac of Kingston to capture their first Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ National Capital Bowl. The cherry on the top was being ranked No. 1 in Ontario at the end of the season.

That was in sharp contrast to the Lions’ first two senior varsity seasons. After a winless inaugural season, St. Mark earned a tie early in its second season against the Brookfield Blues. Brown decided it was time to celebrate . . . at his mother’s house across the street. Hot dogs were the main course.

While the team’s numbers are impressive during Brown’s reign as head coach, they were never his primary goals and certainly not on the tip of his tongue today. Now as Brown walks away from the sidelines for good, he takes away countless friendships with current and former players and coaches, wonderful travel/learning experiences with the team and community involvement.

“It’s not about the wins, but the friendships,” said Brown, who had a couple of unsuccessful tryouts with the Ottawa Rough Riders in the mid 1980s, but can watch former Lions’ lineman Scott Mitchell play for the Toronto Argonauts. “All of the guys (including Ken Souliere, Kevin Nolan, Jim Ricci, Kevin Rueckwald, Terry Amadio, Mike Ireland) I’ve coached with, it has become a bit of a coaching fraternity.

“The big thing is I felt privileged (coaching the team). I went to a Redblacks game in the summer and I ran into eight former players. I wouldn’t have these friendships had the principal not asked me to get involved.”

And did he get involved. Brown made the most of each season, sometimes travelling across the country for athletic/cultural exchanges and playing out-of-town exhibition games.

Through the federally funded Society for Educational Visits and Exchanges in Canada program, he took the Lions to Coquitlam, B.C., three times and Raymond, AB. One time, they hosted a school from Halifax. Their schedule also included exhibition games in Toronto, Aurora, ON., and Kingston.

“When I was in high school, my basketball coach and football coach believed in travel,” said Brown, who was one of 10 finalists from more than 500 nominees for the Home Depot NFL 2009 Canadian youth coach of the year award. “It’s all about building memories for the kids. They have phenomenal memories. It’s a lot of challenging work, but you do it because it’s just incredible.”

Then there was the time he gathered 20 players, put them on a bus and went to Cornwall where a church was closing and a South Ottawa church, Our Lady of Visitation, needed pews for its restoration project. The players lifted the pews onto to two 18-wheeler trucks.

One of the many lessons Brown taught his players was to be a “thumb guy” (I’ll do it) and not a “finger guy” (pointing to someone else).

Alumnus Pat Ambler wrote this in his nomination letter about Brown for the national coach of the year award: “This man changes the lives of so many students and helps them get to colleges and universities, in order to better their futures. This award is more for the man he is, and what he has done for countless young men and women, to mould and shape their lives in positive ways. This award is way past overdue for a wonderful man, who has used his passion to teach others about the great game of football, and used his knowledge to show students the right path in life!”

And he hopes to continue to take students down the right path in his retirement with former Belleville-area retired principal Pat Mulvihill. They have formed a new business called Canada International Student Placement Inc., which will place international students in Ottawa high schools.

But who will be the next head coach of the St. Mark senior Lions football team? Brown said he will let Pat Kelly and Andrew Castellarin huddle over that issue.

“It’s good for the younger guys to pick up the (head coaching) reins. They could arguably do a better job. It takes a lot of energy. That’s not to say I won’t be back,” said the only man who has ever held the job.

“I committed in 1992 and I stayed until retirement. Commitment is very important.”

It pays to do as your principal asks.

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly on Wednesdays in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Ottawa’s Michael O’Connor has become only the second freshman starting quarterback to lead his team to the Vanier Cup national CIS football championship. A transfer student/athlete from Penn State University, O’Connor only had eyes for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, when he returned to Canada, and his leadership sparked them to a Cinderella season. After the Thunderbirds went 2-6 and were last in the six-team Canada West standings in 2014, UBC finished the 2015 season at 10-2, which included a 26-23 win over the University of Montreal Carabins in the 51^st Vanier Cup final in Quebec City. O’Connor, who attended Ashbury College for two years before finishing his final two years of high school at prep schools in the United States, completed 31 of 51 passes for 389 yards, one touchdown and was named the game’s MVP. Quinn van Gylswyk kicked four field goals, including the 20-yard game-winner with no time on the clock, and two converts to secure the unpredictable win for first-year Thunderbirds’ coach Blake Nill, who now has won three of eight Vanier Cups as a coach.

• Madison Reid had a tournament to remember, spearheading the Carleton Place High School Bears to the consolation final at the recent OFSAA girls’ AA basketball championship. Reid, a provincial-calibre player, scored 151 of the Bears’ 224 points as the Eastern Ontario Secondary School Athletic Association No. 2 team won three of its five games in the double-knockout championship. Carleton Place opened the provincials with a 56-44 win over Eden of St. Catharines and Reid counted an amazing 46 points. She averaged 30.2 points a game and scored 67.4 per cent of the Bears’ points.

• After defeating Cuba, Puerto Rico, Chinese Taipei, Italy and The Netherlands to go undefeated and win its preliminary pool at the World Baseball Softball Confederation Premiere 12 championship, Canada lost 4-3 to Mexico in the baseball quarter-final. Relief pitcher Phillippe Aumont of Gatineau was charged with the loss, allowing three hits, three runs, and one earned run in two-thirds of an inning. He won the second game against Puerto Rico, permitting one hit and three walks and no runs in 2.2 innings of relief.

• The Ottawa Irish Rugby Club 1^st XV team from 1986 to 1992 has been inducted into the Ontario Rugby Hall of Fame. During that seven-year span, the Irish earned 13 provincial titles and produced numerous national team members, including Al Charron, John Billingsley, and Steve Gray. The Irish won an unprecedented seven straight Ontario league titles, two McCormick Cups, and four Ontario sevens championships.

• International table tennis player Eugene Wang of Ottawa improved his world men’s singles ranking in December by 23 places and sits at No. 61, which is the fourth-best showing in his career. That ranking was helped by upsetting China’s Fan Bo, the men’s singles runner-up at the 2015 world championships, and reaching the round of 16 at the Swedish Open.

• Ottawa’s Ciera Disipio of Cape Breton University has been named the Atlantic University Sport women’s soccer rookie of the year. She started 11 games for the Capers, scored four goals and added three assists, took three shots in the Capers 1-0 victory over Acadia University in the AUS final and lost in the consolation final to Queen’s University on penalty kicks at the CIS championship. Two Ottawa athletes were selected to the AUS second all-star team — fifth-year senior Kristy McGregor Bales of Dalhousie University, and third-year junior Tessa Ritchie of Mount Allison University.

• Running back Josh Earle created the most exciting play of the day, returning a fourth-quarter kickoff 120 yards for a touchdown. But it was a case of too little, too late for the St. Peter Knights as the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association champion lost 40-7 to Catholic Central of London in the Western Bowl, one of nine OFSAA Football Bowl games in Hamilton. Earle also made eight tackles on defence. NCSSAA champion St. Joseph Jaguars lost 35-14 to Crestwood Mustangs of Peterborough in the OFSAA Football Bowl A-AA semifinal.

• Defending champion Franco Cite had to settle for the silver medal at the OFSAA boys’ AA volleyball championship, falling 25-15, 24-26, 25-20, 22-25, 15-11 to Eden of St. Catharines in the final. Franco Cite reached the final without losing a set in its six previous matches. Eden won its ninth provincial title in 10 years. Beatrice Desloges lost 25-22, 25-15, 25-22 in the consolation final. At the OFSAA boys’ AAA championship, Longfields-Davidson Heights lost to Uxbridge in the consolation final. . . . After placing second out of 15 divers in the preliminary round of the men’s three-metre springboard competition at the recent FINA Grand Prix diving meet in Gold Coast, Australia, Jamie Bissett of Ottawa finished fourth out of six in his semifinal and missed the final by nine-tenths of a point. . . . Track cyclist Arianne Bonhomme of Gatineau and Meghan Grant of Delta, B.C., who is coached by Ottawa’s Jenny Trew, and para cyclists Joey Desjardin and Elsa Lalonde, both of Hawkesbury, have been selected to Cycling Canada’s NextGen program. . . . Hannah Dawson of Hawkesbury and Daniel Villeneuve of Sherbrooke won the gold medal in pre-novice pairs at the Skate Canada Challenge competition.

MARTIN CLEARY

When head coach Barry Russell released the tryout notice in September for the Carleton Place High School girls’ senior basketball team, only four players walked onto the court. The season appeared to be in jeopardy.

But in retrospect, it was the awkward first step in what would become a magical and memorable journey for the Bears, who somehow captured league and regional championships, put a copyright on fourth-quarter rallies and reached the OFSAA AA provincial consolation final under the guidance of a sharp-eyed Grade 11 shooter.

“It was a one-off Cinderella season,” said Russell, reflecting on his final season as the Bears’ head coach.

“I found it amazing,” added high-scoring, shooting guard Madison Reid. “It was amazing how far we went. We worked well as a team.”

But after that first tryout, Russell didn’t have a proper complement of players to start a game. He could have stopped right there, but, instead, he promptly started recruiting in the school’s hallways for a team that had made the the OFSAA girls’ AA championship in 2014 with seven club players.

Russell doubled his roster size, but it required promoting two players from the girls’ junior team. At least the season could start, albeit with a wide range of ages, talent and no speed. At least they had one current club player, Reid, and one from the previous year, Hannah von Hofwegen, who provided the on-floor leadership.

But when only two players appeared for the first practice, (the other student/athletes couldn’t attend because of other commitments), all practices were cancelled. The team used their pre-game warmup as practice time.

Because of these constraints Russell couldn’t consider travelling to any tournaments. Nor was he able to recruit another teacher to assume the head coaching duties as he entered his final year before retirement. 

Near the halfway point of their 10-game regular season in the Lanark league, the Bears were 2-2 and Russell could see the finish line. He even mentioned to his wife one night that “it looks like we’ll be done early.”

It’s almost as if the players got wind of that comment and used it as motivation. The Bears won their final six games and placed second in the league behind Smiths Falls with an 8-2 record.

The Bears upset Perth District in a semi-final. A much bigger test was the best-of-three final against Smiths Falls. The Bears lost the first game by 13 points on the road. But Carleton Place battled and won the next two games.

“The second game was one of the best basketball games I have seen. It was back and forth and our gym was rocking,” he said. “The third game was at Smiths Falls. I said to the girls come out fast and give what you’ve got. If you get a lead and take out the crowd, we could sneak away with the win.”

They stole the game, sealed the series and scooped up the Lanark championship.

The Bears entered the Eastern Ontario Secondary School Athletic Association championship tournament seeded fifth. But they played like they were the top seed, winning all four games for a return trip to OFSAA.

They followed the same script each time — trailing after three quarters, Russell gave a positive pep talk and the players respond with a fourth-quarter rally. Russell’s reaction to winning the EOSSAA title: “We never expected to get out of Lanark.”

The Bears’ players carried no expectations into their second straight OFSAA championship. But it proved to be exhilarating as well as exhausting for the 14^th-seeded team in the 18-team championship.

Carleton Place exploded for 25 points in the fourth quarter of its opener to break a 31-31 tie and beat eighth-seed Eden Flyers of St. Catharines 56-44. Reid counted an amazing 46 points for the Bears.

Eventual bronze medallist and No. 9 Mother Teresa Spartans of London brought the Bears back to earth in their second game by double/triple teaming Reid and von Hofwegen. The result was a 50-30 defeat. Reid notched 23 points. One more loss and the Bears were heading for Carleton Place.

In the consolation-round quarter-finals, the Bears easily handled 18^th-seed Francis Libermann Falcons of Toronto 65-28 with Reid counting 34 points. In the semis, Carleton Place downed St. Matthew Tigers of Ottawa 51-40, scoring 18 points in the fourth quarter to snap a 33-33 third-quarter deadlock. Reid recorded 35 points.

But the consolation final proved to be too much. The Bears were exhausted and looking at their fifth game in three days. They also had lost their tallest player, 6-2 Kate Bains, because of injury in the second game. And during the consolation final against No. 6 Patrick Fogerty Flames of Orillia one of the Bears’ players passed out on the court. Finishing with only six players, the Bears lost 42-22 and Reid had a team best 13 points.

“The girls ran out of gas,” Russell said. “It would have been unbelievable to win that game. By the third quarter (down 35-16), we were not going to win. The kids were gasping for air. What a run.”

Reid, who caught the attention of a number of Canadian university coaches, scored an almost unheard of 151 points in five games. Despite heavy defensive coverage, she owned the court beyond the three-point arc and averaged a phenomenal 30.2 points a game and accounted for 67.4 per cent of her team’s points.

While Reid and teammates Bains, von Hofwegen, Mikael Morley, Krista Heyd, Grace Mckay, Maria Salvarakis and Jenna Watson started the season wondering what was to come, they celebrated by going farther than they ever expected.

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Kanata’s Jamie Lee Rattray spearheaded the undefeated Canadian women’s development team to the gold medal at the Nations Cup women’s hockey tournament in Fussen, Germany. A forward with Brampton in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, Rattray scored five goals and added two assists in three games, including two-goal games against Russia and Finland in the final. Her second goal against Finland came in overtime for a 4-3 victory. Ottawa’s Rebecca Leslie of Boston University played in the first two games against Sweden and Russia.

• To the people who knew him, Chuck Paul had a warm smile, a friendly disposition and a wonderful sense of humour. When he patrolled the football field, Paul was decisive and fair with a truly professional demeanour. Paul, who died Dec. 11 at age 85, was a CFL official from 1963-91 and served in 478 games, including eight Grey Cups. Inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame in 1996, Paul was an award-winning player and helped Ottawa Tech capture five consecutive high school championships.

• Sarah-Lynne Begin of Ottawa scored in overtime to give the undefeated Canadian team a 10-9 triumph over Finland to win the best-of-three President’s Trophy final and the gold medal in the junior division of the world ringette championships in Helsinki. Begin, who was named Canada’s player of the game and the team’s MVP for the championship, counted two goals and three assists in the final. She finished the eight-game championship with nine goals and 14 assists, while Molly Lewis of Ottawa had 11 goals and 11 assists. In the two-country world senior championship for the Sam Jacks Trophy, Finland won for the fifth consecutive time, humbling Canada 8-2 and 13-0. Nepean sisters Kelsey and Kaitlyn Youldon shared Canada’s only two goals. Jennifer Hartley of Ottawa also played for the Canadian team.

• The well-travelled David Leger has added another destination to his hockey coaching career. After assignments with the Nippon Paper Cranes in Japan, the Ottawa 67s, the Dunaujvarusi Acelbibak in Budapest and the CCHL’s Cumberland Grads during the past three seasons, the former University of Ottawa coach took his first semi-pro job Dec. 14 with the East Coast Hockey League’s Evansville Icemen, who are affiliated with the Ottawa Senators. He has assumed the duties of assistant coach Johan Lundskog, who returned home to Sweden indefinitely for personal reasons. Leger is working under head coach Al Sims, a former NHL defencemen.

• Before Ottawa cyclist Michael Woods said his final farewell to his Optum Pro Cycling presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies team, there was one last celebration. Optum announced Dec. 31 the club had finished first in the UCI America Tour to go with being ranked the No. 1 American continental men’s program. Woods had a big impact on the team’s tour victory, finishing second overall in the Tour of Utah and winning the fifth stage and placing second at the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic. He also was third in the individual UCI America Tour rankings. Woods will ride for Cannondale Pro Cycling this year. Optum, which placed 13^th out of 36 teams in the world women’s ranking, will welcome Ottawa’s Katherine Maine this season.

• Former St. Peter High School Knights’ Eli Ankou got a taste of the NCAA bowl experience, when the 6-3, 305-pound junior defensive lineman played for the UCLA Bruins against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. Ankou, who was ranked ninth in the Bruins’ defensive point standings (24 solo and 23 assisted tackles) in 13 games in 2015, counted three solo tackles and two assisted tackles in a 37-29 loss to the Cornhuskers.

• Gabriela Dabrowski of Gloucester was named Tennis Canada’s doubles player of the year and finished 2015 ranked 48^th on the WTA list, reaching as high as 40^th in May. . . . Mirela Rhaneva of Ottawa is in fifth place in the Europe Cup women’s skeleton standings, having won the last two events in Sigulda, Latvia, using untouchable start times. . . . Matt Greer of Shawville, Que., is one of 40 athletes named to Softball Canada’s 40-player national men’s team athlete pool for a development camp June 2-5 in Kitchener. . . . Defending champion Jamie Bissett of Ottawa placed third in the men’s three-metre springboard, while Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club’s Henry McKay was fifth at the winter senior national championships in Saskatoon. McKay also was ninth on one-metre and seventh on platform. . . . After Gatineau’s Olivier Rochon won the FIS Europa Cup men’s freestyle skiing aerials competition in Ruka, Finland, he was forced to withdraw for precautionary reasons from the first two World Cup meets in Beijing, after a hard landing during training. . . . Vincent de Haitre of Cumberland won the men’s 1,000- and 1,500-metre races in respective times of one minute, 7.92 seconds and 1:45.73 at the Canadian long-track speed skating single-distance championships in Calgary. . . . Glebe Collegiate Institute grad Yasmeen Dawoodjee was named the McGill University female athlete of the week for leading the Martlets to a 3-2 record and the silver medal at the Innisbrook invitational women’s volleyball tournament in Clearwater, Florida. The 5-8 setter had 180 assists in 19 sets, including a school record 57 in a 3-2 gold-medal game loss to the University of Sherbrooke, as well as 57 digs, eight aces, seven kills and four stuff blocks.

Special to Postmedia

Klara Patel graduated from Merivale High School last June, but decided to return in September to upgrade her marks to enter university. While there, she also wanted to take her interscholastic wrestling career to new heights.

It seemed like a solid plan — until she discovered longtime Merivale wrestling coach Takis Zervas had collapsed the popular program because of his heavy teaching workload. No other teacher/coach stepped forward.

Patel, the girls’ 67.5-kg class bronze medallist at the 2016 OFSAA championships, was shocked. It looked like the athletic side of her plan had been slammed onto the aging Merivale mats and pinned.

But Patel responded in a most interesting way: Why can’t I be a one-person Merivale High School Marauders wrestling team?

It took a while, but Patel used all her determination to convince school officials to allow her to be Merivale’s sole representative at National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association meets and the provincial OFSAA championships, if she qualified for a third year. 

In the end, she achieved  her ultimate high school sports goal for 2017 — the OFSAA girls’ 67.5-kilogram division gold medal. Eight NCSSAA athletes scored top-six results, five earned medals, but only Patel emerged a champion.

The other NCSSAA medallists were Jessica Hong, Sir Robert Borden, silver, girls’ 44 kilograms; Devan Larkin, Cairine Wilson, silver, boys’ 64 kilograms; Ibrahim Ayyoub, Brookfield, bronze, boys’ 83 kilograms; and Matthew Vecchio, Maurice Lapointe, bronze, boys’ 38 kilograms.

Merivale High School’s Klara Patel, centre, celebrates her victory in the girls’ 67.5-kilogram class at the OFSAA wrestling championships, wearing her gold medal and holding the winning draw sheet.

Patel’s success was the first time a Merivale student-athlete had won an OFSAA wrestling gold medal since Ray Takahashi captured the boys’ 44-kilogram class in 1973. Her golden moment also made Patel the sixth NCSSAA female wrestler to stand on the top step of the medal podium since girls’ wrestling was introduced at OFSAA in 2001.

Elena Torlone of Samuel Genest captured two wrestling gold medals (2010 and 2011), while the other four champions were Colonel By’s Sarah Stringer (2008), one of Patel’s two National Capital Wrestling Club coaches; Samuel Genest’s Alejandra Paguaga (2011); St. Pius X’s Taylor Robinson (2013); and Hillcrest’s Augusta Eve (2014).

“When I learned there would be no (Merivale) team, I was disappointed. I was really upset,” Patel said, recalling that crushing moment. “For me, wrestling is also about the people; they’re great guys to be around. We were close. Takis was a hoot. He was hilarious. He made it fun. It brought me back to why I do it.” 

And Patel didn’t want to lose that connection to a valuable part of her high school life. Remembering Ottawa wrestler Torin MacFadyen represented his school, Lynwood Alternative, as a one-athlete team at the 2014 NCSSAA and OFSAA championships, Patel was motivated to approach Merivale athletic director Jenna Dynie to start her campaign as the only Marauder on the mats.

“I asked her: ‘What’s the possibility of having a team of me?’ ” Patel explained. “I pestered her a lot.” 

Dynie understood Patel’s plight and agreed to help the school’s top wrestler reach her goals. Dynie did the necessary paperwork the various meets. Patel’s NCWC coaches Chris Schrauwen and Stringer were in her corner for each match.

“Klara and I were in touch about this wrestling season from the very beginning of the school year,” Dynie wrote in an email. “Klara has proved to be very organized in her wrestling adventures. She approaches with the confidence of someone who has put the time in to fully prepare for whatever match is in store.”

 After Patel won her second straight NCSSAA title for a repeat undefeated city season and was named the top wrestler at the city championships, sport convenor Jason Kirby also helped her register for OFSAA.

“The school gave me some (financial) support. It was huge. I was super-grateful,” she added. “Ms. Dynie was really, really awesome. She tried to do most of the work so I could train. Once I got to OFSAA, she just wanted me to do well.”

After dropping her bronze-medal match in 2015, but winning the bronze in 2016, Patel was the top-seeded 67.5-kilogram wrestler entering the 2017 OFSAA championships. She breezed through her first two matches.

 That put her into her third semifinal in as many years and she was nervous, knowing she had lost the previous two. She was hesitant and was almost pinned, but survived to reach the final.

The first of two two-minute rounds ended 1-1 as Patel and Ellise Daynes of Hamilton’s Bishop Ryan were tentative in the final. Daynes scored two points in the opening minute of Round 2, but Patel told herself “this isn’t how this match will end.”

“I was on her legs the whole time,” said Patel, who developed into a fight-for-everything-type leader under Zervas. “I had never shown her I could throw. I needed something big. She wouldn’t expect a throw. If I hesitated it wouldn’t work.” 

Patel grabbed Daynes’ bicep and leg and tossed her to the mat for a fireman’s throw, a four-point manoeuvre. Only 20 seconds remained.

“The final 20 seconds were the longest 20 seconds of my life. When the final buzzer went, I didn’t hear it. It took me a while to clue in. I was super-happy.”

 When she posted her gold-medal result on social media, Olympic champion Erica Weibe of Stittsville, who has met and trained with Patel, put everything into proper perspective, when she replied: “Now, on to the next one.”

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Two months of patient and renewed excitement for training in Phoenix, Ariz., energized Joanna Brown of Carp and triggered her victory in the women’s race at the CAMTRI sprint triathlon in Sarasota, Fla. After finishing the swim 23 seconds off the pace, Brown recorded the fastest bike ride and run time to win in 55 minutes, 36 seconds for a 22-second victory.

• The top-seeded Ashbury Colts stamped “Mission Accomplished” on their 2016-17 boys’ senior high school basketball season by winning the gold medal at the OFSAA class AA championships. After winning bronze in 2015 and silver in 2016, they were aiming for gold this year to score a complete set of main medals. Noah Kirkwood’s 39-point effort led the undefeated Colts to a 76-62 win over Thornlea in the final. Ashbury also won single-A gold in 2010. Seventh-seeded Louis Riel earned the silver medal in the OFSAA division A final, losing 82-49 to Central Toronto Academy.

 • Persistence has paid off for national alpine team skier Mikaela Tommy of Wakefield, Que., who scored her first World Cup points (four) in her 28th World Cup start since Jan. 26, 2013, when she placed 27th in a women’s giant slalom at Squaw Valley, California. Earlier this season, Tommy, 21, was 22nd in the world championships’ super G. At the Canadian U19 alpine championships, Hunter Watson of Camp Fortune was second in the men’s slalom.

• Dunrobin’s Samantha Cornett, who was the Professional Squash Association women’s athlete of the month for February by winning a tournament in Winnipeg and qualifying for the second round of the top-level Windy City Open, defeated two players in the top 30 before downing world No. 47 Sivasangari Subramaniam of Malaysia 8-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-8 in the final of a $15,000 tournament in Calgary. Cornett is ranked No. 44 in the world.

• Ottawa golfer Grace St-Germain knows where she’ll be golfing for the next three years — at least at the post-secondary level. After completing her freshman at Daytona State College and playing one more year with the Falcons, St-Germain has announced she has committed to representing the University of Alabama Razorbacks in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Alabama is ranked third in NCAA division 1 women’s golf.

• Gatineau’s Olivier Rochon made his first men’s aerials freestyle skiing super final of the season and placed sixth at the world championships … Arnprior’s John Leslie was fifth in banked slalom and ninth in snowboard cross at the International Paralympic Committee snowboard World Cup final in PyeongChang, site of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games … All Saints’ Savanna Mouat (girls’13-19 200-metre freestyle open) and Ashbury’s Alex Bui (boys’ 14-and-under 50-metre breaststroke junior high school) were bronze medallists at the OFSAA swimming championships … After losing its first two matches at the OFSAA girls’ AAA volleyball championship, Glebe Collegiate Institute won four straight matches before falling 26-24, 23-25, 25-23, 25-18 to Sinclair in the consolation final … Ottawa Lions’ Shona McCulloch finished ninth in the women’s five-kilometre race and helped Canada win the team gold medal at the North America, Central America, Caribbean cross-country running championships in Boca Raton, Florida.badminton championships.

Jesse Levine doesn’t forget his Ottawa roots.

A tennis broadcaster (Sportsnet), professional coach and a talent scout for Nike, Levine flew home early from the French Open in Paris to be inducted into the Ottawa Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Levine, 29, was guest speaker at the “Breakfast of Champions” at the Jewish Community Centre on Sunday. The event awarded top Jewish athletes in the area and also served as a sendoff for the 14-member Ottawa contingent heading to the 20th Maccabiah Games in Israel July 4-18.

A Wimbledon junior doubles champion in 2005 (with Michael Shabaz), Levine was an All America player at the University of Florida and went on to a career high ATP singles ranking of 69th in 2012. An elbow injury ended his professional career prematurely.

“A big motivation factor for me was that a lot of people told me I was too small, or not strong enough,” said Levine, known for his quick feet and a blistering forehand.

“I actually enjoyed when people would say these kinds of things because it lit a big fire inside me. It made me want it even more.”

Levine, a dual citizen who has competed internationally for the USA and Canada, is hopeful of supporting the Ottawa contingent at the Maccabiah, although his tennis schedule might preclude it. The Maccabiah Games involve an Olympic-style slate of sports including track, swimming, baseball, volleyball, hockey, cycling, etc. They are the third largest Games in the world, after the Olympics and FIFA World Cup.

Other Ottawa athletes headed to Israel include nationally ranked junior rhythmic gymnast Haley Miller and two-time OFSAA sprinter Alexa Shabinsky.

Alexa Shabinsky is going to Maccabiah Games for hurdles and sprints. She was also one of 3 awarded the Parliament Lodge Graduating Student Athletic Achievement Award at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre Sunday June 11, 2017. Ashley Fraser/Postmedia

Shabinsky trains with former Canadian hurdler and sprinter Cecilia Branch as well as Ottawa Senators strength coach Chris Schwarz.

Shabinsky’s best event is the 100-metre hurdles. In fact, her best time in the discipline would have won junior gold at the most recent Maccabiah Games in 2013. She will also compete in the 200m and 400m sprints.

“I’ve never been to Israel before, and combining my first experience in Israel and my first international track competition is going to be super special,” said Shabinsky, 18.

“My religion and my favourite sport are both very close to my heart.”

In Israel, younger members of the competition will tour the country as part of the junior Israel experience and stay in a kibbutz.

Shabinsky was also one of three athletes to be awarded the Parliament Lodge graduating student award at the JCC, along with Adam Greenberg and Daniel Segal.

Families were well represented at the breakfast. Among them was a proud grandfather, Sol Shabinsky, former ownership partner of the Ottawa Rough Riders. Shabinsky’s Ottawa Athletic Club helped support Levine as a young tennis player.

Samantha Cogan, a Division I hockey player at the University of Wisconsin, won the Sharon Koffman Memorial Athletic Award. Among the other student award winners were Miller, Ben Vered, Max Cantor, Ryan Kaufman and Amanda McCarthy.

At the Maccabiah Games, the Osterer family of Ottawa will come close to filling out half of an entire Canadian softball roster as four Osterers — brothers Daniel and Rob and their cousins Jake and Stephen — are on the team.

The rest of the Ottawa contingent in Israel: Alex Aronovici, swimming; Jamie Bender Kerbel, junior baseball; Hayley Bennett, women’s softball; Kenneth Kaczkowski, wrestling; Lauren Shaffer, swimming; Coby Pearce, junior tennis; Bill Izso, Maccabi Canada.

In his address to Maccabiah athletes and other JCC award winners, Levine spoke of alarming his teachers as a boy at the Hillel Academy by handing in creative writing assignments that only focused on sports, especially tennis. It seemed to work out for him as Levine has a post-playing career as a broadcaster and coach with a Nike affiliation any pro athlete would envy.

“It’s important to dream,” Levine. “I was blessed and lucky enough that a lot of my dreams became reality.

“And I hope it happens for a lot of you young people here today.”

wscanlan@postmedia.com