Kodiaks persevere through 2022

By Lethbridge Herald on December 29, 2022.

Herald FILE photo Todd Caughlin is proud of the student athletes , the staff and the institution for getting through a tough 2022. He felt that has only allowed Kodiaks Athletics to excel in the latter half of the year.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge College Kodiaks athletics were proud of how the student-athletes and staff were able navigate through tough times in 2022.

“I’m just proud of our student-athletes, our coaches, our staff and couldn’t feel more supported by the College leadership,” said Todd Caughlin, LC’s manager of athletics and recreation.

“Because we went through some tough times.  And we did everything and had to fight through so many things, going through that 2020-2021 and then 2021-2022.  And always keeping the focus that it’s going to get back to normal hopefully sooner than later. But the resiliency of the  student-athletes and the coaching staff — I couldn’t say enough good things about it. Like they just responded, they reacted (and) they were responsible.  They stepped up when they needed to, they kept each other safe — and so you know on  a whole, yeah 2022 didn’t start the way we wanted to because we were still dealing the pandemic.

“But the ending of 2022, with having all the teams competing (and) having it back into a full ACAC (Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference) schedule for all the sports, (I) couldn’t be a happier guy.”

Caughlin thought the successes have come out of the start of this season with the men’s basketball team in first place, the women’s basketball team in second place, the  men’s volleyball in first place and women’s volleyball being in second place.

The women’s soccer team won the bronze medal as hosts of the ACAC championship and the men’s cross country team placed third.

“It’s been a good year,” said Caughlin.

“We finished off with a bang. Again, it wasn’t the way anyone of us started (and) wanted it to start in 2022, but we persevered and now we’re excelling from it.”

Caughlin looked at winter 2022 as preparation for the Fall 2022 and a full normal.

“And I think it’s showing now with every one of our teams right in the hunt,” said Caughlin.

Caughlin said they (the players) get to play again, when asked about the early success of the fall teams in the back half of 2022.

“Obviously, again, going through the pandemic, the support we had from the institution and them allowing us to continue to train (and) at least be with their team and teammates,” said Caughlin.

“Again not to the level that none of us are used to. But just at least having that availability  to escape the realities of the pandemic, all worked hand in hand to the level of the excitement coming in the middle of August when soccer shows up, end of August when cross country shows up and in September when all the rest of the teams are on campus. We used the time right to get prepared for now and it shows.”

Now heading into 2023, Caughlin would like to see players maintain a level of competitiveness, the excitement to compete and showing commitment.

The women’s basketball will be hosting the league championship in March.