REYNOLDS 1
GLENLYON NORFOLK 0
These are heady times for Reynolds Secondary, a school that is proving it sure knows how to celebrate a 50th anniversary.
The Roadrunners girls’ soccer team won the Ryan Cup for Lower Island high school supremacy with a 1-0 victory over the Glenlyon Norfolk Gryphons on Tuesday afternoon at the University of Victoria.
That follows the Roadrunners boys’ soccer team winning its first B.C. triple-A championship last fall and also its first Colonist Cup Lower Island title since 1983.
On Thursday, to commemorate Reynolds’ half-century anniversary, the school inducts its charter class of athletes into the new Reynolds Hall of Fame — Olympians Tracie McAara, Janice Mason, Mike Lewis, Christen Petelski, world-medallist wrestler Stacie Anaka, CFLer Brian Ramsay and former triple-A pitcher Mike Finlayson.
All in all, it’s a memorable year to be a Roadrunner, capped by alumnus John Horgan’s run for the B.C. premiership.
“It’s been an unbelievable year for our school,” said J.J. Atterbury, the Reynolds boys’ and girls’ soccer coach, who is in his 14th year at the school.
“This has been a nice way to celebrate our 50th anniversary on so many fronts.”
It continued Tuesday with Sophia Anderson tapping in an Annie Kind rebound for the winning goal in the second half for the Ryan Cup championship.
“We don’t want to be shown up by the boys,” quipped Anderson, referring to the Roadrunners’ B.C. championship and Colonist Cup title in the fall.
“This is my Grade 12 year and it feels great to win the Ryan Cup city championship. Hopefully, we can carry this forward.”
The next step is the Island triple-A championship taking place next Monday and Tuesday at Braefoot Park and Oak Bay High. The B.C. triple-A championship is at the end of the month in Burnaby.
“We have been together a long time and know each other well,” said Anderson, of what makes the Roadrunners such a cohesive unit.
But the double-A school GNS didn’t make it easy for the ’Runners.
“That was a battle GNS gave us,” said Atterbury, whose Reynolds squad edged the St. Michaels University School Blue Jags 1-0 in the Ryan Cup semifinals last week.
“We gutted it out with a lot of heart,” added Atterbury, who was a national champion player for Bruce Wilson’s UVic Vikes and a B.C. Province Cup champion with Gorge FC.
The Gryphons just couldn’t find a way, as Reynolds goalkeeper Jessica Gardiner recorded the clean sheet.
“That was a great game by both teams and really entertaining. It could have gone either way. The ball just didn’t find a way to go in for us,” said GNS coach Sonny Pawar, a former player for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and University of Calgary Dinos.
“I’m extremely proud of our girls. They battled right to the end against a bigger and deeper school,” added Pawar, whose Gryphons upended the triple-A Oak Bay Breakers 2-0 in the Ryan Cup semifinals.
GNS now prepares for the Island double-A championships next Monday and Tuesday at Shawnigan Lake.
HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL: The Ryan Cup kicked off a big week of championships . . . The Lower Island high school track and field championships are all day today at Centennial Stadium ahead of the Islands next week. . . . The Howard Russell Cup Lower Island rugby championship game between B.C. double-A No. 1 SMUS and B.C. triple-A No. 3 Oak Bay is Thursday at 6 p.m. at SMUS. It will be preceded, also at SMUS, by the Community Shield final between Reynolds and Ladysmith at noon; the Community Bowl between Claremont and Edward Milne at 1:30 p.m.; the junior high final between Oak Bay and Claremont at 3:30 p.m.; and the Col. Hodgkins Cup bronze-medal game between GNS and Belmont at 4:30 p.m.
