It’s still early in the school year, but SMUS athletes have already begun competition with the Senior Girls Field Hockey and Senior Boys Volleyball teams both in action this past weekend. The Senior Boys Soccer team is hosting the 10-team Independent Schools Athletic Association (ISAA) tournament this coming weekend.
Senior Girls Field Hockey
After close to 60 girls showed up for tryouts, the SMUS Senior Girls competitive team was chosen by the middle of last week. Within 48 hours, they were launched into their first tournament – the Friendship Cup – on Friday and Saturday at the Cowichan Sportsplex.
SMUS entered the Competitive Division of this popular season-opening tournament rather than the top Premier Division as Blue Jag coaches knew that the SMUS Grade 11 students would be missing for Saturday’s games due to outtrips.
Friday’s games included a convincing 8-0 win over Shawnigan Lake School’s second team and a 3-0 decision over Abbey Park, a team that travelled from Oakville, Ont., to participate in the tournament. Goal-scoring was spread out for SMUS on the opening day, with Avery Geddes and Mackenna Brown both scoring twice in the first game. Brown, Bella Mattenley and Kendyll Adams scored for the Blue Jags against Abbey Park.
On Saturday, with the Blue Jags’ Grade 11 students missing, the games were tougher. The final pool game was a solid 1-0 SMUS win over South Okanagan Secondary with Yuriko Ishikawa scoring the only goal on a tap-in. This led to the final against South Delta Secondary, which proved to be a very even match and ended in a scoreless draw. As this was the Friendship Cup, there was no shootout to determine a winner, so SDSS and SMUS shared first-place honours in the division.
“Overall, it was encouraging to see the progress of the roster in their first run out as a team,” said SMUS Head Coach David Kerr. “The newcomers to the team showed decent progress, while the leadership core of Caitlyn Mullen, Adams, Geddes and Brown provided good role models for everyone. Special mention should be made to Lina Cratzius and Amelie Fleck, who shared the goalkeeping duties and recorded four consecutive shutouts.”
League play starts up this week with a game against Reynolds on Wednesday at UVic, beginning at 4 pm.
Senior Boys Volleyball
The SMUS Senior Boys Volleyball team finished 12th overall in the season-opening Camosun Chargers tournament held over the weekend.
The Blue Jags beat Reynolds and Oak Bay in their final two matches on Saturday to place third in the Tier 2 portion of the tournament.
SMUS opened Saturday with losses to both Gulf Islands Secondary and Claremont. The Blue Jags managed to push Claremont – which finished second overall in the entire tournament – to three sets in an impressive effort. Once again, as SMUS was without its Grade 11 students on Saturday due to outtrips, some Grade 10 players were pulled up to fill the ranks.
In action Friday, SMUS dropped its first match to Mark Isfeld of Courtenay in three sets before splitting its final two matches, losing to Lambrick Park and beating Duncan Christian.
“Connor Kipling had a great weekend setting and connected with Eliot Mairet with lots of quick hits,” said SMUS Head Coach Brady Doland.
The Blue Jags are back in action on Wednesday when they host three other teams in league play beginning at 6 pm. They will travel to Abbotsford this coming weekend for the Trinity Western tournament.
Senior Boys Soccer
In an exhibition game last week, the Blue Jags beat visiting Carihi of Campbell River 3-2.
SMUS will play host to the 10-team ISAA Senior Boys Soccer tournament this coming Friday and Saturday.
The host Blue Jags will meet Southpointe in the tournament opener at 9:45 am. on Friday. SMUS will also play West Point Grey Academy at 12:15 pm and Shawnigan Lake School at 4:30 pm. The Blue Jags will play their final preliminary round game at 10:15 am. on Saturday vs St. George’s.
The top two teams in round-robin play will meet in the tournament final at 3:15 pm. on Saturday.
