10 www.pgcitizen.ca | Tuesday, November 23, 2010 sports Condors back on top of zone Jason Peters Citizen staff Duchess Park dominance is still in fashion in senior girls volleyball. The Condors won their seventh consecutive north central zone championship title at the triple-A level on Friday night. In a best-of-five match at Kelly Road, against the Kelly Road Roadrunners, Duchess swept to victory. Set scores were 25-16, 25-20, 25-23. In the clash against the Runners, the Condors were missing Grade 12 middle blocker Nicole Schlick, one of their top talents. Schlick is recovering from a shoulder injury and was replaced by fellow Grade 12 Kelly Matters, who is normally a power hitter. Even with the switch, the Condors were never seriously threatened. “The first two games we were in control,” said Condors coach Richard Mintenko. “The last game, the girls didn’t play up to par. But, overall, I think we’re ready.” Ready for the provincial championship tournament, that is. The Condors will host the 16-team B.C. final Dec. 2-4. As the zone runner-up, Kelly Road secured a provincial berth. Home on the podium King swims to aggregate title Ted Clarke Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca After 400 metres of tough slogging in the pool Sunday at the Prince George Aquatic Centre, Sterling King came within a ripple of catching the fastest fish at the wall. It came down to a split-second and 16-year-old Joe Byram of Vernon beat King to the punch to claim a thrilling win in the 15-and-older boys 400m individual medley. Byram won the race in 4:48.09, but King won the Fall Invitational meet crown. The 15-year-old Prince George Barracudas Swim Club member captured the aggregate title by two points over Byram. “It’s really nice to have some competition from Vernon, it really adds some variety to the meet, and it felt great to have a good race against someone with his skill,” said King. “Joe is a good swimmer who made the Canadian team and he really gave me a push. Anytime I raced him he was a push.” King lost the 200 IM to Byram by about two seconds, but topped the Vernon swimmer while winning the 1,500 freestyle, 100 butterfly and 200 butterfly races. The nine-year Barracuda veteran also won the 200 freestyle and was second in the 200 backstroke. Last season ended on a high note for King, a provincial team member, who won gold medals in the 50m fly, 100m fly, 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley at the triple-A provincial championships. He went on to place fourth at the age group nationals in the 200 fly and was fourth in the 200 IM in a club-record time of 2:14.27. The 13-14-year-old girls Barracudas trio of Danica Ludlow, Haley Black and Jessa Wing finished 1-23 respectively in the aggregate standings, while Saveli Yungman and Harrison Lagzdin were first and second respectively among 13-14-year-old boys. Katie Mann and Grace Ni topped the 15-year-old girls standings, with their ‘Cu-das’ clubmate Claire Shrimpton a close fourth. Other Barracudas who made the top-three were Hannah Esopenko (second, 10-and-under girls), Kathryn Chrobot (first, 11-12 girls), and Montana Forster (third, 11-12 girls). The Barracudas topped the team rankings with 1,922.5 points, fol- lowed by Points North (Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert), with 1,534, and Vernon, which totalled 497. Barracudas head coach Jerzy Partyka said the involvement of Byram’s Vernon Kokanee Swim Club in the Prince George meet marked the first time in six or seven years an Okanagan club made the trip north for a club meet, and that helped bring out the best in athletes like King. “We really appreciate that Vernon came here,” said Partyka. “It’s pretty good for Sterling to have somebody to race, it’s not as much fun when one person is winning by 15 or 20 metres. “He’s looking really good right now and he’s training very hard. He has 19 or 20 days before we go to Kamloops (for the Ice Classic Invitational) and he should be ready so he will swim much better.” Vernon coach Marc Tremblay said his club took advantage of a break in the meet schedule to make the eight-hour trek to Prince George. In a typical season, the longest trip for them is 4 1/2 hours to Vancouver. “Prince George is a very good team and I wanted to come and see what is their secret,” said Tremblay. Five-set slugfest ends well for Trojans and Cougars Jason Peters Citizen staff In an epic, five-set battle, the D.P. Todd Trojans slipped past the College Heights Cougars for zone gold. Deservedly—and in a break with tradition — both senior girls volleyball teams advanced to the double-A provincial championship tournament. In a fun twist, neither club knew that just getting into the final guaranteed a berth in provincials. The zone championship match was played Saturday at Nechako Valley secondary in Van-derhoof. In the deciding set, the Trojans edged the Cougars 15-11. “They played really well — they fought hard for every point,” Trojans coach Kim Forrest said of her players. “So did (the Cougars). There were times when we’d get down and we’d come back, and same with College Heights.” Neither Forrest nor College Heights coach Jason Olexyn told their players beforehand there were two berths in provincials instead of just one. “We kept it a secret until they lost,” Olexyn said. “They thought there was only one going to the provincials so after we lost I said, ‘We have good news, we have bad news. What do you want?’ They said, ‘We’ll take the bad news.’ I said, ‘Well, you only got the silver.’ They said, ‘What’s the good news?’ I said, ‘The good news is, we still get to go to provincials.’ There were tears of joy. They were just ecstatic because they thought their careers were done, so to speak.” Olexyn has eight Grade 12s on his roster. Piper Hoekstra, a Grade 12 power hitter for the Trojans, was the MVP of zones. “She was great defensively and offensively,” Forrest said. “She’s definitely our best player, by far. Without her, I don’t know that we could do as well as we do.” Provincials are Dec. 2-4 in Kamloops. ■ The PGSS Polars finished the senior girls quadruple-A zone championship tournament earlier than planned. At the weekend event, held on their home court, the Polars were eliminated in the semifinal round, where they lost 24-26, 25-21, 25-19, 25-22 to the Correlieu Clan of Quesnel. The Clan later fell to the North Peace Ookapiks in the gold medal match, so the Fort St. John-based Ooks will represent north central B.C. at the provincial gathering, Dec. 2-4 in Nanaimo. “Correlieu played exceptionally well against us,” said PGSS coach Allan Tong. “They really stepped it up a notch in all aspects of the game. Our passing was our one area of weakness.” Barb Cranston of North Peace was the MVP. SPORTS IN BRIEF Soccer, no thanks The Canadian Press TORONTO — Airing on TSN 2 and featuring two unlikely finalists, the MLS Cup drew an audience of just 36,000 in Canada. The Major League Soccer championship, won 2-1 in extra time by the Colorado Rapids over FC Dallas, kicked off at 8:55 p.m. ET at BMO Field. Football, yes please TORONTO — The second week of the CFL playoffs delivered another record audience for TSN. Sunday’s West Division final between Saskatchewan and Calgary averaged 2.54 million English and French viewers, making it the most-watched CFL playoff game ever recorded, not including the Grey Cup. The previous high was 2.2 million during last year’s West Division final between Saskatchewan and Calgary. Young is done The Associated Press NASHVILLE — Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher said Vince Young needs season-ending surgery on his throwing hand, not that being healthy would have kept the quarterback in the Titans’ starting lineup. The team is placing the quarterback on injured reserve within the next couple days, but after Young’s latest meltdown, Fisher said Young wouldn’t have started Sunday against Houston anyway. Young saw a hand specialist Monday, and Fisher said team doctors recommended the surgery to repair Young’s torn flexor tendon in his right thumb. Young suffered the injury late in the third quarter of Sunday’s 19-16 overtime loss to Washington. Fisher also said he didn’t know — and didn’t sound as though he cared — if Young will get an outside opinion. 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