If it’s the spring time, it must be Stags and Bays time.
Two high school sporting dynasties — Shawingan Lake rugby and Oak Bay track and field — did their annual thing again this time of year.
Shawnigan Lake School won its ninth B.C. Quad-A rugby championship in 11 years. The Stags rallied from a 12-6 halftime deficit to score 15 unanswered points to defeat arch-rival St. George’s Saints of Vancouver 21-12 in the final at Rotary Bowl Stadium in Abbotsford.
Second-half Stags tries by Jojo Tanaka Campbell and front-row standout Moamen Elhendawi proved pivotal as did the points kicking of Jamin Hodgkins.
“We dug deep,” said Stags coach Andrew Doyle.
“Our defence was strong as we kept St. George’s to zero points in the second half.”
That helped take some of the sting out for Shawnigan Lake from last year’s upset loss to Oak Bay in the all-Island 2018 provincial final.
“We are proud of what our players have accomplished and all the work the kids have put in. It has really paid off for them. Commitment is a huge word among our players,” said Doyle.
Almost all the graduating Stags will play at the university level, except captain Ciaran Breen, who is headed to the development program of French pro club Biarritz.
Another Island school made a final, but the St. Michaels University School Blue Jags were blanked 34-0 by the Collingwood Cavaliers of West Vancouver in the Double-A championship game. The Earl Marriott Mariners of Surrey beat the Robert Bateman Timberwolves of Abbotsford 46-19 in the Triple-A final.
Meanwhile, more than 2,400 athletes from 330 schools gathered at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna as the B.C. high school track and field championships were hosted for the first time in the Okanagan. Many of the meet records are still held by Olympians such Islanders Phil Olsen and Mike Mason, along with Shane Niemi, Jeff Schiebler, Scott Neilson, Dave Steen, Dylan Armstrong and Alyx Treasure.
Oak Bay was gunning for its 13th provincial championship in 18 years but finished second for a second consecutive year, with 90 points, to the 101 accumulated by Langley’s Walnut Grove.
Brooks was tied for ninth with 36, SMUS was 11th with 33 points, Reynolds 14th with 28 while Claremont, Brentwood College, Mount Douglas and Carihi were also in the top 25.
Individually, NCAA Pac-12 Arizona Wildcats-bound Grade 12 star Alisa Lyesina of Oak Bay swept to the women’s 800- and 1,500-metre crowns.
Some of the biggest Island results came out of a fine Grade 11 class with Angelina Shandro of SMUS and Chase Haagensen of the Reynolds Roadrunners, the respective girls’ and boys’ MVPs from the Island championships, taking their act to the Okanagan with great aplomb.
Shandro won the B.C. girls’ 400 metres and placed second in the 100 and 200 metres, while Haagensen captured gold in the boys’ 100 and 400 metres and took silver in the 200 metres.
“You have to be born with speed but it takes training and hard work to improve on what you have,” said Haagensen, who won the 100 metres in 10.90 seconds as an aptly-named Roadrunner.
“I think I can take it to 10.75.”
Continuing improvement is what coaches look for at this point in development, so it’s significant that all three of Haagensen’s B.C. championship medals were won with personal-best times.
Haagensen is also a soccer player in the rep Island Wave program: “I play wing and striker and speed is definitely my advantage on the soccer pitch.”
But it’s on the track, he said, where he will pursue his varsity university sports career when that time comes after this Grade 12 season next year.
In field highlights, Rebecca Dutchak of Claremont won double gold in the girls’ long jump and triple jump while Isaac Clements of Oak Bay defending his title in the boys’ pole vault.
