Sports | DrumhellerMail

Morrin girls bring home gold

    The Morrin Junior High Girls Volleyball team have served up an exciting season this year. To cap it all off, they stepped off the court as two-time champions.
   Over the weekend, the team was in Olds to compete in the South Central Zone J championships. The team came out with gold medals.
   “It was great to see and we were really excited. I don’t think Morrin has won a volleyball banner in quite some time,” said coach Melanie Nelson.

The Morrin Junior High Girls Volleyball team had a banner season, winning both the South Central Zone J championship and their league championship. The team includes (Back, l-r) Cera Cawiezel, Mesha Olsen, Charlese Gridley, Lexi Cullum, Shebi Couturier, Kyra Gridley, Serena Michie, coach Melanie Nelson, (Front, l-r) Quinn Nelson, Taylore Davidson, and Kayla Adams. Assistant coach Jessica Wolf was missing from the photo.

    The Morrin girls were up against seven other teams and breezed through the round robin, winning all of their games. They then went on to defeat Trochu in the semi finals.
   They were then matched against the home team, Olds, for the championship.
   In the first game of the best of three series, the Morrin girls came away with a 25-18 win. However, Olds bounced back for the second game.
   “We thought we had won the set with a score of 25-23 but the Morrin girls were on the net. The score was then 24-24 and Olds scored another point making it 24-25 in their favour. Finally, we scored 3 points in a row to bring home gold 27-25,” said Nelson.
   The team was also crowned league champions, defeating Hanna on their own turf in the final game.
   Overall, the season was well played.
   “It’s been a good season and it’s done now. We started our season a little slow. We did very well in our league, but in the tournaments we placed third in Trochu and Delia. We won our own tournament,” said Nelson.
   Next year, the team will look different. Roughly half the players will graduate to the high school level. However, they will always be champions.

Saints junior high boys victorious on Championship Night

    The St. Anthony’s Junior High Boys volleyball team won its championship night and is looking forward to an even stronger next season.
   Greg Lemieux coached the team, and saw incredible progress throughout the season.
   They are a young team with many Grade 8 players and a few Grade 7 players on the squad.
   ‘We were building on some of the stuff we did last year. For the Grade 8 players, there was a lot of improvement, and for the Grade 7 players we worked on getting them used to our system,” said Lemieux.
   On November 4, the Saints played Morrin for their league championship and won.
   This was the perfect cap to a strong season, which included tournament play.
   In September, they were in Okotoks to play in the Christ the Redeemer School Division eight-team tournament and won third place.
On November 1, the Saints were in Bassano for a five-team tournament and came home with the gold medal.
   “We were missing quite a few of our players because they were on a band trip, so we brought up three grade 6 players,” said Lemieux. “They played phenomenally well, I was very impressed.”
   He is proud of how the team played and is looking forward to next season.
   “The players we had this year were just Grade 7 and 8s, so we are looking strong next year and want to keep building for the future,” said Lemieux.

The St. Anthony’s Saints junior boys volleyball team won first at tournament in Bassano, and then went on to close out the season winning Championship Night versus Morrin.

Dino Half making jump to full marathon

    The Dinosaur Half Marathon is looking forward to growing up and becoming a full marathon.
   Organizers of the annual event presented the Badlands Community Facility with $20,000, its largest contribution in its four year history, making its all time total contribution $53,000.
   Mayor Terry Yemen is grateful for the support and appreciates that the Community Futures Badlands Dino Half has continued to support the Badlands Community Facility.
   “There is monetary support for this but there is more to it. There are over 400 people attending and they are not all from Drumheller. They are taking their stories home and sharing them,” said Mayor Terry Yemen.
   Over those four years, Community Futures has been the main sponsor of the event and plans on continuing support in the future.
   “But through their sponsorship and initiation this would have never taken place. In these four years, the community has thrived with health and fellowship. For the last two years, this has been the single largest sporting event in Drumheller,” said Colin Kloot of the Dino Half organizing committee.
   “We are making this a flagship event in Alberta and we hope to look back in 20 years time and (Community Futures) will still be a proud sponsor of this event.”
   Wayne Hove, general manager of Community Futures, says the event fits in its mandate.
   “This event covers all three aspects of economic development. There is a physical component, a social component and economic component, and these factors play a large reason for its prominence in our plans. It is so professionally well done every year that it is very easy to keep seeing the perpetuation of it,” said Hove.
   Next year the event will have both the full and half marathon, as well as the 5k and 10k races.
   “Next year we are adding a full marathon into the fold and we are hoping to make this a premiere event in the province,” said Kloot, saying this has always been a goal for him.
   “My initial vision was for a marathon, and then we realized from a logistic point of view that we should start small and grow from there.”
     He adds he believes there is support out there for the event to grow, and the best way is through word of mouth. So far, with the positive feedback, they have heard about the new routes and the unique landscape in Drumheller, the event has a good chance to grow. He projects there could be upwards of 1,000 participants in the next two years.

(l-r) Jens Madsen and Colin Kloot of the Dino Half present Mayor Terry Yemen with a donation of $20,000 to the Badlands Community Facility, with Wayne Hove of Community Futures, the naming sponsor of the event.

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