By: Dan Sylvester
There are some seasons certain school teams can dominate a sport although as I work on my second decade as a teacher and coach I believe this was a first; that the Collège Churchill High School Bulldogs won four volleyball championships this past season. The four teams who won their respective championships were the Varsity Boys, Varsity Girls, Junior Varsity Girls and Junior High girls.
The junior high girls’ team was coached by teachers Aaron Boila and Sydney Pankratz. The team had a regular season record of 6-1, and won the championship game vs. Stanley Knowles 2 sets to zero. The first set was 25-13 and the second set was 26-24 in an exciting championship game.
The Junior Varsity girls were coached by teacher, Hailey Unger who lead the girls through a great season as well as the Varsity girls who were coached by principal Ryan Hughes.
Mr. Hughes had this to say about the season: “CCHS Varsity Girls volleyball had a very successful season. The team maintained their first-place status through the duration of the regular season, losing only one match to Elmwood. The Bulldogs won the Divisional Finals, bringing the WSD Champions banner home to Collège Churchill High School. They finished their season playing in the Provincial playdowns against Transcona Collegiate. The varsity girls team has a strong base of current Grade 11 students, who look forward to defending their title next school year. Of special note was the inclusion of a student from Italy, who enrolled at Collège Churchill High School as part of the Winnipeg School Division International Education program.
Collège Churchill High School had a very successful season, with four of the five volleyball teams winning the WSD Championship banners for their age groups. Congratulations to the Varsity Girls, Varsity Boys, Junior Varsity Girls, and Junior Girls on their success! We thank all the players and coaches for their commitment to the teams and to representing our school!”
Honourable mention to the junior high boys, coached by teachers, Sofiene Loumi and Christi Holfeld. The boys won their quarter final game although ended up losing in the semi-finals to the eventual champions from Lansdowne.
Roman Meyer and Brett Hendrickson lead the varsity boys through a season of four wins and two loses which gave them first place at the end of the regular season and they played Elmwood in a thrilling five set championship. The team was invited to the AAA provincials where they participated and enjoyed the experience at Calvin Christian School.
Shifting to winter sports there are a couple of basketball teams training for games and the hockey academy continues to work hard.
Speaking of hockey, we have a new and powerful story coming out of the girl’s hockey league. This is the league’s 25th anniversary and the Churchill Female Hockey team is brand new to the league. The team had two wins and one loss in the preseason tournament to determine what division they would play in which led them to play in division 1 for their inaugural season and according to coach Mat Varnes, they have been very competitive in all of their games. The team is made up of basically all grade nine students except for two grade ten students. The league is high school which includes girls in grade eleven and twelve and just goes to show how hard these girls work to compete in a new league against older players. Three girls have been selected to the WWHSHL All Star game on January 23; Selene Wozney, Lindsey Hamilton and Bailey Grunewald, congrats to these girls and the entire team! They are extremely proud to be representing Churchill and the Riverview community and we are very proud of them!
Finally, music has continued as much as possible around the school with our new music teacher Sara Sulyma who adds that we have concert band and jazz band going at lunch, and junior band is after school on Tuesdays and Fridays.