Logan Finley scored twice and assisted on a goal to lead the Kelowna Owls to the Okanagan Valley senior AAA high school girls soccer championship on Wednesday.
Finley’s goal in the 20th minute of the first half held up as the winner as the Owls defeated the visiting Mt. Boucherie Bears 4-0 in the title game at Kelowna Secondary School.
The Owls will represent the Okanagan at the B.C. School Sports provincial championship tournament May 31-June 2 at the Burnaby Lakes Sports Complex.
Kasey Patchell added a KSS goal in a 2-0 first half, while Finley notched her second of the match in the 70th minute off a pass from Chelsea Cristofoli. Fiona Rhea, with an assist from Rachel Davis, rounded out the scoring two minutes later.
Faith Tazelaar recorded the shutout.
The win completed an unbeaten Okanagan Valley season for the Owls (9-0-1), their only slight blemish being a 2-2 draw with Boucherie.
The Owls earned a berth in the final by defeating the Penticton Lakers 10-0 in semifinal play on Monday while the Bears downed the Rutland Voodoos 1-0 in a shootout.
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A pair of Okanagan Athletics Club members will be among 56 athletes representing Canada at the 2017 Francophone Games in the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) this summer.
Kelowna’s John Gay and Rostam Turner will travel to Abidjan for the Games being held July 21-30. Gay will compete in the 3,000-metre steeplechase and Turner in the decathlon.
Gay, in Los Angeles today representing the University of B.C. Thunderbirds at the United States Track and Field Middle Distance Classic, is coming off a recent personal-best performance of 8:43.20 — the fastest time in the NAIA this year — at the Occidental College Invitational in L.A.
The Okanagan Mission Secondary School grad, who established a PB in the 5,000 metres (14:19) in April, has also qualified for the NAIA national championships in Alabama May 25-28 where he will attempt to defend his national steeplechase title and run in the 5,000-metre event (ranked second behind T-Birds teammate Jesse Hooton). Joining him at Gulf Shores, Ala. will be UBC freshman teammate, Sean Bergman of Kelowna, another OAC product.
Gay, 20, said the meet today in Los Angeles and the NAIA championships represent two sides of his sport.
“At the first meet, I will be running chiefly for time, as I continue seeking to lower my personal best and achieving the World University Games standard of 8:40,” noted Gay. “At the NAIAs, the focus is entirely on scoring points for my team.
“Racing two events at the NAIA championship with only a few hours in between is an exciting challenge and I’m eager to test my limits and do my very best for the team.”
Following the collegiate season, the T-Bird junior’s focus will turn to preparing for the Francophone Games, an event for which he qualified last season.
“I’m incredibly excited to represent Canada once again and looking forward to the chance to visit a new country and continent,” said Gay. “While there is no real ‘French Connection’, I have studied French extensively during my time at university and look forward to putting my education to use in an immersion experience."
Turner, whose mother is French, is coming off a U Sport heptathlon championship in March while representing the University of Toronto.
The 21-year-old 2016 Kelowna athlete of the year, has been training hard since, preparing for the Athletics Ontario decathlon competition June 10-11 in Ottawa. Then it’s on to the Canadian national championships July 4-5 before heading to the Ivory Coast. He’s also hoping to compete for Canada at the FISU world student games in Taiwan in August.
In 2016, Turner, a Kelowna Secondary School grad in his fourth year at the U of T, ran, jumped and threw to a gold medal in the decathlon at the North American, Central American and Carribean (NACAC) track and field championship in El Salvador. He set both a personal-best mark (7,601 points) and a meet record.
Coached by OAC’s Pat Sima-Ledding, Turner went on to also win the 2016 Canadian men’s decathlon championship.
Meanwhile, Turner’s older brother, James, missed the Francophone Games qualification window (May 1, 2016 to April 30, 2017) by two weeks. He scored 7,776 points in April of 2016, but didn’t complete a decathlon the remainder of the year.
The Kelowna Kodiaks won six straight games to claim the gold medal at the Penticton Barn Burner midget B lacrosse tournament on the weekend.
A 9-4 victory over Abbotsford capped an unblemished record for the Kodiaks, who had finished first in round-robin play with a 5-0 record.
Bradley Swecera scored twice and assisted on a goal to lead a well-balanced offensive effort by the Kodiaks, who led 3-1 after the first period and 7-1 going into the third.
Zander Torres, Blake Spragge, Tyler Johnston, Colten Wasylenko, Brendin Fritsen and Nolan Katinic all scored once and added an assist for the tournament champs, while Dexx Belanger rounded out the scoring. Goalkeeper Shaun Agostinho contributed a pair of helpers.
The Kodiaks opened the tournament with a 10-5 win in round-robin play and followed up with victories over Mission (11-2), Abbotsford (10-4), New Westminster (10-0) and Delta (10-7).
Up next for the Kelowna Minor Lacrosse Association representatives is a tournament in Richmond this weekend, while they’ll play host to their own tournament June 9-11 at the Rutland and Memorial arenas.
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