Six wins in the past week have confirmed the Kelowna Owls as the team to beat in the Okanagan Valley Senior AAA Girls Soccer League.
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Following a tournament victory in Victoria a week earlier, the Kelowna Secondary School team earned four more wins to claim its own KSS Invitational crown and added a pair of shutout wins as regular-season play wound down.
A 3-0 win over the AA Okanagan Mission Huskies in the six-team Invitational title match capped another perfect weekend for the Owls.
Fiona Reha scored twice, Hailey Wright added a single tally and Faith Tazelaar recorded the shutout against OKM, who had defeated the Rutland Voodoos in their semifinal match.
The Owls earned their berth in the champion game by getting the best of the Mt. Boucherie Bears by a 3-1 count in semifinal play. Rene Watson’s two goals led the Black and Gold while Wright rounded out the scoring. Assisting on the goals were Keira Baldwin, Ashley Kimler and Ashley Kowal.
In round-robin pool play, the hosts breezed to a 3-0 win over Lake City of Williams Lake and a 7-0 triumph against Guildford Park of Surrey. Tazelaar was in goal for both whitewashes.
Watson, Wright and Brooke Barcelona were the KSS scorers against Lake City while Erica Lambert helped set up two of the goals.
A two-goal effort by Danica Lee led the charge against Guildford. Single goals came from Logan Finley, Tasia Chuaniuk, Reha, Baldwin and Watson.
Meanwhile, the Owls improved to 6-0-1 in league play by defeating the Salmon Arm Jewels and Penticton Lakers 5-0 and 3-0 on Monday and Wednesday respectively.
The second-place Rutland Voodoos are at 4-1-1, their latest win being a 3-1 victory over Salmon Arm on Wednesday in which Brooklyn Kostiak, Megan Sekella and Katrina Schrod scored for the winners. Salmon Arm had opened the scoring on a penalty shot.
Mt. Boucherie, the only team to steal a point from the Owls this season (2-2 tie), had a bye on Wednesday, but earlier in the week the Bears defeated Penticton 5-0. MBSS’s third-place record is 2-1-3.
Regular-season action resumes on Monday with Rutland taking on Boucherie in West Kelowna and Penticton visiting Salmon Arm. The final regular-season games go Wednesday with Rutland taking on the Owls at KSS and Salmon Arm meeting the Bears at Boucherie.
All games start at 4 p.m.
The league semifinals will be played on May 15, with the championship game set for May 17 at the home of the highest surviving seed. The winner will represent the Okanagan at the B.C. School Sports provincial championship tournament May 31-June 2 at the Burnaby Lakes Sports Complex.
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At least six Central Okanagan athletes will represent B.C. at the 50th Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg this summer.
Sadie Taylor-Parks and Avery Gammel have been selected for the B.C. girls volleyball team while Bobby Blaskovitz and Morgan Nichols are part of the provincial boys’ volleyball team.
A pair of Kelowna Secondary School Owls — Kennedy Dickie and Rachel Hare — will compete for the B.C. girls’ basketball team at the Summer Games being held July 28 to Aug. 13.
Taylor-Parks, a 6-foot-1 middle blocker with the Kelowna Owls and ranked fourth among the top high school volleyball graduates, signed on with the UBC Okanagan Heat recently. She also has played with the Junior Heat program for three seasons.
Gammel, headed to the Olds (Alta.) College Broncos this fall, was a setter with the Mt. Boucherie Bears in 2016 and is a teammate of Taylor-Parks with the Junior Heat.
Ashley Shannick, head coach of Team BC’s girls volleyball team said she’s expecting another strong showing at the Games for B.C.
“This group would be considered to be very young for a competition like the Canada Games, with the overwhelming majority of our athletes being 17u in an 18u competition,” noted Shannick. “The 18u athletes who have earned their spot on the team are already very accomplished and experienced. We will look to them to provide a lot of leadership throughout the duration of training and competition.
“We will be strong defensively and aggressive offensively when we are out of system. As we progress throughout training and come together as a team I would expect this year’s Team BC to be fast paced, full of energy, extremely competitive and lastly tenacious, with a never quit attitude.”
On the boys’ side, Nichols, a setter with the AA George Elliot Coyotes this past volleyball season, is another UBCO recruit, having signed on with Heat in the fall. He was ranked eighth in the province among 2016-17 post-secondary recruits.
A Grade 12 setter with the quad-A Mt. Boucherie Bears last season, Blaskovitz also helped MBSS claim a BCSS provincial silver medal in 2015. He’s committed to play with the PacWest Douglas College Royals beginning this fall.
Team BC’s head coach, Brad Hudson, also the new coach of UBC Okanagan Heat men’s team, said he’s looking forward to the challenge of getting his group ready for some stiff competition in Winnipeg.
“It is a privilege to coach this team,” said Hudson, a three-time PacWest coach of the year at Douglas College, who led the Heat to a 9-15 record this past season, the most wins for the program since joining Canada West.
“The opportunity to play for something more than ourselves cannot be undervalued. The responsibility of representing our families, our friends, our teammates, and our communities is one that we don’t take lightly and I look forward to the challenge,” Hudson said.
“This group possesses tremendous character. There is an underlying selflessness that will allow us to play a balanced brand offensively and systematic defensively. I expect this group will compete exceptionally hard in training and in competition. Whatever level of success we achieve I am quite certain it will be well earned.”
Dickie, a Grade 10 forward with the Kelowna Owls girls basketball team this past season and member of Team BC in 2106, will be joined on the Canada Summer Games team by Hare, a KSS teammate. The two were among the leaders on the Owls, who won the Okanagan Valley AAA championship and finished in sixth among 16 teams at the B.C. School Sports provincial tournament.
There are 13 other sports still to announce their rosters for Team BC and that will be done later this month and into June. The complete list of Team BC athletes will be available by July 14.
Featuring 16 sports, over 250 events and a major cultural festival, the 2017 Canada Games will welcome over 4,000 athletes and coaches and more than 20,000 visitors.
Celebrating the Games’ 50th anniversary and Canada’s 150th birthday, the Canada Games are this country’s largest multi-sport event for young athletes.
They will leave a lasting legacy of new and enhanced sport facilities, volunteer and leadership development that will benefit athletes and the broader community for years to come.
Kelowna’s Nik Federko moved into contention for a Zone 2 ( Thompson Okanagan) Junior Golf Tour’s overall title with a pair of second-place finishes on the past weekend.
The Immaculata High School product will go into this weekend’s two Junior Tour events in Kamloops sitting in fourth place overall after finishing in a tie for second at the Summerland Golf and Country Club and the Shannon Lake Golf Course on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Federko carded a 75 in Summerland to tie Tristan VanderMeulin of Princeton for the runner-up spot behind Lake Country’s George Wilkins, who nailed down his second straight win on the Tour by shooting a 2-over 74.
On Sunday, Federko shot a 74 at Shannon Lake, good for a three-way tie with Wyatt Brook of Kamloops and Marcus Apchin of Kelowna. Ryley Johnson of Vernon, playing in only his third tournament of the season, won the event with a 1-over 72.
Brook goes into the weekend in his hometown of Kamloops with the overall lead in the order of merit with 158.5 points while Wilkins is second with 134.8 points. Brook had a combined 45 points in the past two tournaments while Wilkins kept pace with 45.5 points.
Matt Hopley, a bantam-aged golfer, finished with 27 points on the weekend and holds down third place overall with 123.5 points, while Federko is fourth at 115.5 points after posting a tournament-best 53.5 points on the weekend.
The Zone 2 Junior Tour travels to the Vernon Golf and Country Club on May 13 and to Kelowna Springs on May 14. Golfers head to the Salmon Arm GCC and Talking Rock in Chase June 3 and 4 respectively before moving to the Gallagher’s Canyon Golf and Country Club June 10 and 11 for the Tour’s championship rounds.
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