Kwantlen women’s soccer team adds four new recruits

The Kwantlen women’s soccer team has signed four new recruits for next season’s team.

Hilary Andow, Melina Gomez, Tiffany O’Krane and Norma Sheane have agreed to play for the Eagles in the 2010-’11 season.

Andow went to R.C. Palmer Secondary in Richmond, where she played midfield and forward for the Griffins. She won the school’s Top Athlete award in Grades 8, 10, 11 and 12. She already has two years of collegiate soccer under her belt, and head coach Vladimir Samozvanov expects her to be one of the team leaders in the coming season.

Gomez is Kwantlen’s newest goalie and she has provincial and national soccer experience. She also won Athlete of the Year in 2007 at her high school, Carson Graham in Vancouver.

O’Krane is a midfielder/defenseman from Fleetwood Park Secondary in Surrey, where she won Athlete of the Year and MVP on her soccer team Grades 8 through 11.

Sheane is no new face to Samozvanov. He’s coached the defensive player in the past and is excited to have her join the Eagles this year. She was a member of the U18 Burnaby United, which was a 2009 national finalist; the U17 provincial championship team; and the U17 Las Vegas Tournament champions team in 2008.

Samozvanov feels that the new players will add to the squad’s style of play.

“The main goal in recruiting for me was to replace graduated players and add new dimension to the team’s play,” he said. “The [overall] goal is to build a strong team, which we were able to do for the past two years, and we want to keep the momentum going.”

Kwantlen’s 2009-’10 team won the school’s first-ever provincial title and the first national medal, with a third place finish at the Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association national tournament in Ontario.

Campuses puts focus on fitness and recreation

New fitness and recreation classes are springing up across Kwantlen campuses this year as part of an initiative to get more students physically fit.

Faculty and the Kwantlen Student Association are trying to get the word out about yoga, belly dancing and hip-hop classes beginning this fall, while they brainstorm ideas for intramural sports, other classes and clubs.

Classes already introduced are hatha yoga (a gentle posture and breathing exercise class), power yoga (a cardio- and strength-intensive exercise class), belly dancing and hip-hop dancing.

Hatha yoga was offered last year and saw a moderate response from students. But small registration numbers are complicating the introduction of the new classes. Though hatha yoga and power yoga had enough registration to start as scheduled in September, the dance classes were delayed for several weeks.

Recreation coordinator John Stewart said getting students interested has been difficult, something he attributes to the lack of awareness about recreation opportunities at Kwantlen.

“You have to build a reputation, and once you get that, you get people coming to you to look for recreation programs. It’ll take some time.”

The classes, coming intramurals and clubs are being pushed by the faculty and the KSA to promote mind-and-body health.

“If they’re healthy and they’re exercising, their mind is healthy and they’ll do better in school,” Stewart said. “It’s really important to keep yourself active. You think better and you think more clearly.”

Elmo Lara, a KSA coordinator for the Student Health Improvement Program, is trying to raise awareness about a new running club that is being formed. He works to develop programs that will help students understand the connection between fitness and study success.

“If they’re not physically fit, their brain won’t be working as it should,” he said.

When asked about the relevance of the dance and yoga classes to Kwantlen students, Stewart laughed and said “they were just trying to offer something different. With the hip-hop, they were really trying to focus on something students might be interested in because it’s typically a younger style of [dance].”

The classes also reflect a gender discrepancy, which Stewart attributed to registration. Females register more frequently than males, he said, but intramural sports are generally male-driven.

Stewart is organizing several recreation classes and intramurals for introduction next semester. Ideas so far include a boot camp, kettlebells and a morning yoga session. Suggestions are welcome; contact John Stewart at (604) 599-2307.

Women’s basketball tips off Oct. 1

The Kwantlen women’s basketball program tips off its 2009-10 season Thursday, Oct 1, when they host the 10th annual Kwantlen Eagles Basketball Tournament.

All games in the three-day event will be played at the gymnasium on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus. This pre-season tournament is drawing teams from the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Squamish who are all looking to prepare for the coming British Columbia Athletics Association (BCAA) season, which gets going in early-November.

“Expectations are quite high this year,” said Kwantlen Eagles coach Gary Pawluk. The second-year coach expects his team will be competitive, but will be in tough to unseat last years defending BCAA league champions from Victoria, the Camosun Chargers.

This years Eagles have eight players returning from last year’s squad, as well as one fifth-year pick-up. Their experience is the reason Pawluk is so optimistic about the season.

The Eagles tournament schedule will see them play three games in three days beginning Oct 1, with a game against the Douglas Royals. They will then play the Capilano Blues and Langara Falcons over the next two days.

“It’s all about preparing for season play,” said Pawluk. “We want to try to play all the teams in our league before it starts.”

There will be no final game to determine a winner in this tournament. The format sees all teams play three games and a champion determined based on points for and against. The team with the biggest positive differential in this category will take home the trophy.

Tickets for the tournament will be of minimal cost, said Pawluk, who was unsure of exact ticket prices. There will be reduced ticket prices available for Kwantlen students and tickets will be available at the door.

Coach working to turn Eagles baseball into an event

As the weather warms and the fields dry, the start of baseball season nears for the Kwantlen Eagles. Jessica Rolli provides a words-and-pictures look at this year’s team.

With baseball season approaching, the Kwantlen Eagles are taking steps to ensure a successful season, both on the field and in the stands.

Head coach Rob Webster is hoping to make the games at their home field at Macleod Park in Langley more of an event, and working to create an atmosphere that people will look forward to attending.

“Game days will be a blast. The score board will be up and going, we’ll have an announcer for in between innings, and when the players come up to bat, they’ll have their own music,” said Webster.

Webster is also working with the township of Langley to, one day, have a beer garden at the games, and a game-day events coordinator who is planning different activities for the fans.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to a point where people will say, ‘Hey I got nothing to do, let’s go check out the Kwantlen game,’” said Webster.

The team will put on fundraising events that will also be aimed at engaging the community. A pub night has just been approved and is in the works, as well as a raffle where the first prize will be a trip for two to New York to see a Yankees games.

Although a strong fan base is priceless for any sports team, Webster and the team have been working hard to ensure they play a good game for anyone who does come out to watch.

They practice six times a week and are constantly on the look-out for skilled players.

“There’s a ton of talent that has come out of here that have gone on to the big leagues,” said Webster, motioning to the posters laced around the diamond, printed with names and MLB logos.

One of the names is Brett Lawrie, who became the highest drafted Canadian, at the young age of 18 last year.

Kwantlen’s recent upgrade to a polytechnic university has helped entice some of the local talent to stick around and play for the Eagles.

“Now I can draw from players who want to take a trade and I can offer a solid four-year degree to prospective players,” said Webster.

The team’s first regular season game will be a double-header against Vancouver Island University on March 28. An up-to-date schedule of their pre-season games is available online.

Watch the birdies

Reporters Rachelle Ashe and Alexander Nkrumah spent part of their weekend watching Kwantlen’s best badminton players face-off against collegiate competition from through the weekend. The slideshow below captures some of the action; their coverage is here.

A medal-winning season in photos

In late October, the Kwantlen Eagles women’s soccer team made university history, making it to the provincial playoffs for the first time and then winning bronze in the toughly-fought finals. Jessica Rolli, who covered the women through the season, provides a photographic look back at some of the play that led to the team’s success.

Badminton battle

The whir of birdies and squeaking shoes echoed through Capilano University’s gymnasium Saturday afternoon, as local universities badminton teams swung-it-out during the first rounds of a two-day tournament.

Peter Hawn and Tony Lee of Kwantlen defeated Langara’s Terrence Tung and Danny Luu in the men’s double to clinch a spot in the finals which begin Sunday at Capilano University.

“We’re doing pretty good as a team,” said Lee. “We’ve so far won all the team events - although we haven’t played Douglas yet.” The players looked confident and relaxed, ready for the next round which will consist of winners from today’s game.

Like their male counterparts, Tuyen Pham and Michelle Zhang of Kwantlen blew past Capilano in the ladies doubles, effortlessly advancing to tomorrows finals.

In other events, women’s single player Grace Wang is favoured to win against Sandy Neil of Langara, in a match that will be held in the late hours of Saturday.

From the looks of things, Kwantlen may be poised to win most of the events in this two-day tournament.

Video: Women’s basketball

Reporter Rachelle took a video camera to last weekend’s women’s Eagles basketball game. The result is a video essay with some highlights from the game, and visual detail on those who led the Eagles to their win over Quest. (Video is large.)

Kwantlen Eagles claim victory in last game of tournament

Full-on body-checks, fouls galore and a neck-and-neck race on the scoreboard made for an intense final game for the Kwantlen Eagles, who bested the Vancouver University Island Mariners 92-86, at the Douglas College basketball tournament that ran from Oct.17-19.

Eagle’s head coach Bernie Love was more than pleased. “This is the first time we’ve actually played basketball all year,” he said. “We came up, we scored. We haven’t scored more than 73 points and we scored 92 today.”

Trying to pinpoint problem areas in previous games, Love watched the team’s game tapes and finally came to a conclusion. “Today we shot the basketball — rest of the weekend we would never shot it. We’d be wide open … we were turnin’ the ball over carelessly.”<

Love commends his players for putting their full effort into Sunday’s game. “All the guys played well,” said Love. “Today, Omid (Davani) was fantastic. He had 28 points; he had nine rebounds; he had four assists.”

Davani began to emerge from the blur of red jerseys when he took his third free-throw at the end of the second qurater, which helped bumped the Eagles (who had been lagging a few points behind since the end of the first period), past VIU by a score of 39-34.

The Mariners lagged by a steady 10 points until the final quarter when, at two and a half minutes left, with a score of 88-76, the Eagles started to rack up fouls and the Mariners cashed in effortless free-throws.

With 47 seconds left on the clock, the Mariners had closed the gap considerably and VIU’s Jacob Thom smoothly stole ball from Davani and sank it, closing the score to 89-86 Eagles.

With frequent glances at the score clock, and needless passes, the Eagles were visibly biding their time, as the clock fell under half a minute.

Davani was awarded three free-throw shots, virtually in a row, bringing their score up by three points. The Mariners then took control, and as both teams flew down the court, Kwantlen’s Brighton Gbarazia managed to wrench the ball free from his opponent. With four seconds left, his coach and team members yelled for him to hold onto it as the game slowed to a stop and the timer buzzed.

Love expects this victory will boost team confidence and effort. “They understand how they need to play in the offence again now, and we should be okay,” said Love. “We’re still a lot of rookies. We’re still young, you know, but we’re coming around.”

Filed Under: Sports
Tagged: basketball, Eagles, kwantlen, Sports

Bringing tennis to the table

September 20, 2008 by Alexander Nkrumah · Leave a Comment 

A selection of photos from Saturday’s Canadian Chinese Table Tennis Federation tournament, held at Kwantlen.

Michael Jin of the Tri-Star Seafoods Mavericks sets himself to return a smash from his opponent.

Ten-year-old Michael returns a volley to win his first game in the first round of competition.

Tri-Star Seafood manager instructs his team on the game plan.

A warm-up serve before the competition.

The young and the old were there to compete and to have fun.

Appreciative spectators paid close attention as their favourites launched their quests for a championship.

Filed Under: In Pictures
Tagged: Sports, table tennis

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