Local sports roundup: Kingsville signs five-year deal with new hockey league
Lancers forward Spencer Pommells finished as the CIS scoring leader with 50 points in 27 games, including a league-leading 34 assists.
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Kingsville hockey
The Greater Metro Hockey League is officially coming to Kingsville.
Kingsville council signed a five-year contract Monday with Jack Sport Group, whose majority owner Michael Kolarik also owns a team in the GMHL.
“This is a positive news story,” Kingsville Mayor Nelson Santos said. “Not only will this increase revenues at the rink but the owner will provide support for other events and groups in our town.”
Kingsville will begin play in the 22-team, Tier II Junior A league in September. The town lost its junior C franchise to Amherstburg two years ago when team owners arranged a transfer with the Ontario Hockey Association in an effort to improve attendance. The Kingsville Comets were last in the Great Lakes Junior C League in average attendance at 166 per game for the 2012-13 season.
The GMHL, which is not affiliated with Canadian Junior Hockey or Hockey Canada, added six teams for the current 2013-14 season and expanded by four the year before.
“Every year we get new applicants and we try to do it geographically,” GMHL president and founder Bob Russell said. “We focused on central north last year and we’ve selected southwest as our growth target next year.”
The league welcomes the use of European and U.S. players and aims to raise a player’s profile with exposure to primarily U.S. college programs. Kingsville’s proximity to U.S. college recruiters, plus facilities that were upgraded in 2010 to accommodate a junior team played a role in acquiring the new team.
Lancers hockey
Four members of the men’s hockey team at the University of Windsor finished atop the CIS leaderboard as the OUA hockey season wrapped up on the weekend.
Fourth-year forward Spencer Pommells finished as the CIS scoring leader with 50 points in 27 games, including a CIS-leading 34 assists. Pommells is the first Lancer to lead the nation in scoring since Jordie Preston in 2006-07.
Pommells is also the first Lancer to capture the national scoring title since Jordie Preston did so in 2006-07 in his senior season.
Sophomore defenseman Kenny Bradford led all CIS defencemen in scoring. The St. Catharines native finished with 28 points in 27 games to lead all CIS blue-liners. Fifth-year goaltender Parker Van Buskirk posted a CIS-leading 18 wins. Forward Dylan Denomme led all CIS rookies with 13-18-31 totals and led the CIS with six game-winning goals.
Ranked No. 7 in the CIS, defending Queen’s Cup champion Windsor led the OUA with a 22-4-1 record and the Lancers are guaranteed home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.
Windsor will open the playoffs Wednesday with a three-game series against the Brock Badgers. Wednesday’s game is at Brock, with Game 2 set for Saturday at 4 p.m. at South Windsor Arena. A third game if necessary would be played Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at South Windsor Arena.
Saints sweep
Nicole Tamm scored a combined 28 points as the St. Clair Saints swept a pair of weekend OCAA women’s basketball games on the weekend at Sault College.
Tamm led the way Sunday with 15 points and Lauren Pizzicaroli added 14 in a 70-39 victory. Saturday, Shannon Kennedy scored 15 points and Tamm added 13 in a 73-36 triumph.
The men’s team also posted a weekend sweep of the Cougars, winning 81-76 Sunday and 64-59 Saturday. Trevelle Blyth scored 28 points in the win Sunday, while Charles Baskin netted 16 points in Saturday’s triumph.
Masse honoured
Toronto Varsity Blues swimmer Kylie Masse of LaSalle is the OUA female athlete of the week after winning six gold medals and setting five OUA records while helping Toronto bring home a second-consecutive OUA championship banner.
Masse earned four individual gold medals – all in record time – sweeping the backstroke events (50m, 100m, 200m), and also winning the 200m individual medley with a time of 2:12.78 that broke the 20-year-old record of 2:12.86 held by three-time Olympian Joanne Malar.
She also won two team gold medals in the 400m medley relay – Toronto set an OUA record in the event – and the 200m freestyle relay.
Masse also took home three major awards: OUA Women’s Swimmer of the Year, OUA Rookie of the Year and the Dr. Jeno Teyani individual medley award.
OCAA badminton
The men’s doubles team of Dat Dang and Matt Treloar at St. Clair College finished third at the OCAA badminton west regionals on the weekend at Humber College in Etobicoke to earn a spot in the OCAA championships.
Dang and Treloar were 4-2 in pool play. The OCAA finals are Feb. 20-21 at London’s Fanshawe College.
Playoff bound
Edging the Nipissing Lakers 3-2 (26-24, 23-25, 20-25, 25-18, 15-11) on Saturday, the Windsor Lancers qualified for the OUA men’s volleyball playoffs. Adam Thompson posted 11 kills, while Greg Simone added 9 kills and 11 digs. Gabriel Burlacu added 13 kills.
Sunday, the Lancers closed out the season losing 3-0 (25-20-25-14-25-19) to the York Lions. Burlacu and Simone each had nine kills.
International football
Essex Ravens product Lowhya Lako and Team Canada lost 35-0 to the United States at the under-19 football International Bowl Saturday against Team USA, which is located at the University of Texas in Arlington.
University of Windsor Lancers head coach Joe D’Amore served as the team’s offensive co-ordinator and LaSalle native Kamau Peterson, who, is the associate offensive co-ordinator/receivers coach at York University, was Team Canada’s receivers coach.
Molson Masters
Darren Alexander is the top seed in the open division of the 60th Molson Masters bowling tournament.
Alexander finished in first place Saturday with an eight-game total of 1,974 pins, 19 pins ahead of Marty Sanders (1,955). The other players in the stepladder final are Ryan Trussler (1,928) , Steve Walls Jr. (1,923) and Steve Kubis (1,908).
The top four bowlers in the senior division are Tom Scott, Marc Pouget, Terry Bialkowski and Rick Goyeau.
