As the late Meat Loaf sang, two out of three ain’t bad. Especially when it comes to national championships. University of Victoria teams won two Canadian crowns Sunday and just missed claiming a third.
ROWING: It is perhaps appropriate the University of Victoria, producer of numerous Olympic medallists over the years, hosted the Canadian university rowing championships on Elk Lake. The tradition continued with UVic winning its third consecutive women’s national title as Vikes pullers won gold or silver in all six female events with Sai Sai Faubert out of Oak Bay Secondary named MVP rower of the national meet and Jane Gumley of UVic coach of the year.
“I have a lot of pride for the Vikes. It’s a full team effort. Every place matters, and they really made them count,” Gumley said in a statement.
The Vikes men’s team, with Giancarlo DiPompeo winning three medals, finished third in the nation.
FIELD HOCKEY: UVic won its sixth consecutive U Sports women’s field hockey championship with a 1-0 victory over York in the national final in Toronto. Fifth-year forward Anni Kleinschmidt from Hamburg, Germany, scored on a penalty stroke, awarded just two minutes into the game, and which held up as the winner.
Kleinschmidt scored in all four games of the national tournament as UVic went through pool play with 2-0, 5-0 and 3-0 wins, respectively, over Waterloo, P.E.I. and York. Goalkeepers Anais Chace out of Oak Bay Secondary and Talia Pike out of St. Michaels University School combined for the four clean sheets.
It was the UVic field hockey dynasty’s 17th national championship.
RUGBY: Two 2024 Paris Olympic silver medallists for Canada met in the U Sports women’s rugby championship game in Charlottetown. Langford-based Charity Williams, playing for the UBC Thunderbirds, prevailed 8-3 over the UVic Vikes team, featuring fellow Paris Olympics silver-medallist Carissa Norsten. Williams, with scorching speed in the open field, scored the lone try of the all-Canada West final. Also on the victorious UBC squad is national tournament all-star Adia Pye out of the Claremont Secondary Spartans. Vanessa Chiappetta from Riguad, Que., kicked UVic’s lone points with a penalty goal in the low-scoring final, in which Maddy Grant was named UVic player of the game.
It was the Vikes’ second-consecutive berth in the national championship game.
Norsten, Grant, Justine Blatt-Janmatt and Maya Addai of UVic were named to the national tournament all-star team.
SOCCER: The Canada West runner-up UVic Vikes women’s soccer team, led by conference MVP Ruby Nicholas, goes into the U Sports national championship tournament in Halifax as the sixth seed and will meet the No. 3 Ottawa Gee Gees in the quarter-finals on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. PT. Canada West champion and top-seed UBC plays host and No. 8 Dalhousie, No. 2 Laval meets No. 7 Trinity Western and No. 4 Cape Breton plays No. 5 Nipissing in the other quarter-finals.
The semifinals are Friday and the medal round Sunday.
BASKETBALL: A trifecta of Canada West teams head the first U Sports national men’s top-10 basketball poll, and take four of the top-five spots, with the UVic Vikes (2-0 in conference and 9-1 overall) top-ranked, UBC second-ranked, Calgary Dinos third-ranked and Winnipeg Wesmen fifth-ranked. Only fourth-ranked Ontario Tech crashes the Canada West hoops bash. Laval is top ranked in the first women’s U Sports top-10 poll with Calgary the top Canada West squad at No. 3.
The Vikes host UNBC Timberwolves in Canada West men’s and women’s games Friday and Saturday in CARSA gym.
