Back in play – sports highlights of the year
By Lethbridge Herald on December 31, 2022.
Herald photos -
Local sports highlights this year national events, such as the Brier, to rodeo, little league and high school championships.City hosts successful Brier
Lethbridge hosted the 2022 Tim Hortons Brier in what was a successful event for the city back in March.
Teams from across Canada convened at the Enmax Centre for the 10-day event.
The thrilling final saw Newfoundland Brad Gushue’s team of three beat Alberta’s Kevin Koe 9-8 in 11 ends.
“It’s going to prove to be maybe one of the best events that Lethbridge has ever held,” said Kirk Mearns, vice chair of the Brier host committee.
“With the crowds— the size that they were — I know talking to hotels and restaurants that they’ve been busy all week. … Overall, I think it was a fantastic event.”
Mearns said everything just came together for it just to be a special event and a special Brier.
The event attracted 300 volunteers and 225 of them from Lethbridge and area.
Comets girls basketball champs
The 4A Alberta Schools Athletic Association (ASAA)Senior Girls Basketball Provincial Championship could not have been scripted any better on a March Saturday night at Raymond High School, as the host No. 1 seeded Comets hosted the second-seeded Magrath High School Pandas.
It was the Comets prevailing with an 80-75 nail-biting victory in front of an electric crowd full of school support for both sides of the long-time rivals.
Raymond got a buy to the quarter finals, where the Comets won 97-58 over William Aberhart and then knocked off Salisbury Composite 87-34 in the semi final on route to the final
“It fees so amazing,” said the Comets’ Aubrey Baines.
“We’ve worked so hard and for our whole lives. This was the end goal and we made it.”
Baines thought the team’s strength was never giving up.
“We got down at one point in the game but we never stopped pushing , we never stopped playing our game. We kept telling each other just play our game and we’ll come out with the ‘W’ and that’s all we need to know.”
Baines said she will remember everything from this ride.
“This team is my family and the coaches — they’re so amazing — and I don’t know what I’d do without them this year. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Rugby teams provincial gold
Both Winston Churchill High School Tier 2 senior rugby teams and Raymond High School’s Tier 1 girls team won Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association provincials gold last June in Edmonton. It was the Comets 11th title in team history and it was the first time since 2016 that Churchill won double gold.
The WCHS girls team opened the tournament with a 33-0 win over Notre Dame, a 22-19 semi-final win over Holy Trinity and a 26-19 victory over Sturgeon in the final.
As for the WCHS boys, they had the much easier route to gold as they only had to play in the final game, which was a 36-24 win over Sturgeon.
The Comets beat Strathcona 43-7 in the final after a couple of statement shutout victories on the Friday over Western Canada and Bow Valley respectively.
Pro rodeo rides again
Rodeo fans were ecstatic to hear that the Lethbridge and District Pro Rodeo returned in August for the first time in eight years.
“You can absolutely feel the excitement down here on the grounds to have the event back,” said Mike Warkentin, Lethbridge and District Exhibition chief executive officer.
Warkentin said this is something that has been many years in the making.
“We’ve got some of the top rodeo athletes competing,” he said.
Kole Ashbacher took home the Saddle Bronc title with 86 points, Clint Laye narrowly won the bareback riding by a half a point, Brock Radford rode to victory in the bull riding, the tie down title belonged to Logan Bird, Denver Roy won the steer wrestling, Suzanne Depaoli conquered the Ladies Barrel Racing category, the team roping went to the duo Graham Dillon and Graham Dawson and Brittany Smith won the Ladies Breakaway title by 50 seconds.
Junior Bulls reach Canadian final
The Lethbridge Junior Bulls made it all the way to the final as hosts of the Canadian Junior Little League championship in early August at Spitz Stadium.
The Bulls dropped a hear-breaking game 6-2 to Team B.C.’s Vancouver Batallion.
The Bulls cranked Ontario 12-2 in the one semi-final while the Batallion edged Quebec 12-10 in the other semi.
The Bulls had a 5-2 record in the championship.
Comets football streak to victory
The Raymond Comets beat the Harry Ainlay Titans 34-15 and are the 2022 Tier 1 provincial football champions.
Despite a slow start, the Comets roared back in the season with a nine game winning streak on route to the championship.
Head coach Connor Ralph sensed that a successful season was within his team’s grasp, but it didn’t materialize immediately.
“Going into the year we felt like we had a good team. Early on we played some tough opponents and had a couple of losses. In a weird way that was almost a good thing, because the kids realized that they had to work really hard to reach their potential. The rest of the season they stayed humble and worked hard every week and it paid off in the end.”
Zeniths win provincial banner
The Magrath High School Zeniths senior boys volleyball team are 4A ASAA high school Provincial champions after defeating Calgary’s Centennial Coyotes (25-21, 25-15, 23-25, 27-25) in a nail-biting match at Catholic Central on Saturday night.
The win caps off a storybook season for Zeniths where they had a record of 58-3 in matches and they were a 2A school that played their first year at a 4A level.
“I mean it’s surreal, for sure,” said head coach Shane Orr.
This was the first year of the Zeniths competing at the 4A level.
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