The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

32 - The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 2, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com Spring season heats up Next week will be the busiest of the year in Halton high school sports competition. A number of local teams will travel to various parts of the province to compete in Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) tournaments, while many others will converge on Milton Thursday to vie for regional championships. In girls' soccer, the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders and Loyola Hawks will both play in OFSAA tournaments. Aquinas is the third seed at the AA tournament in Wallaceburg and will play its first game Monday at 9 a.m. against Stouffville. Loyola, competing in the AAA tournament in Chatham, will first take the field Monday at 10:30 a.m. against St. Basil. Oakville Trafalgar will again send a team to the boys' rugby AAA/AAAA championships, which will be held this year in Brantford. Seeding and final scheduling was not available as of yesterday, but the Red Devils will hit the field for their first game Wednesday. OFSAA will also hold golf, tennis and lacrosse festivals next week. Among those competing in tennis will be OT's Monica Hirano, Steph Bigford, Steph Hirano and Kyle Tsang, Loyola's Isabelle Nunez and Michael Syer, White Oaks' Norbert Nemcsck and Marla Hadziosmanovic, and St. Thomas Aquinas' Kevin Denley. Finally, the all-Ontario track-andfield championships will be held Thursday to Saturday in Ottawa. Closer to home, Halton champions will be crowned Thursday in soccer, baseball, softball and slo-pitch at various facilities in Milton. Senior girls' soccer AA, AAA and AAAA finals will be contested at 1:30 p.m., junior boys' soccer and boys' baseball will be played at 2 p.m., girls' softball and girls' slowpitch finals will begin at 2:30 p.m., senior boys' soccer AA, AAA and AAAA championship games will commence at 3 p.m., and the junior girls' soccer GRAHAM PAINE / OAKVILLE BEAVER final will start at 3:30 p.m. Finalists in many of those games HIP CHECK: Iroquois Ridge player Leah Russell (right) got the better of this collision with Bishop will be determined in semifinal con- Reding's Alexandra Schroder during Halton high school junior girls' soccer playoff action Tuesday in tests to be played Monday or Tuesday. Milton. Ridge won the game, 3-0. VanderVliet earns all-American honours Oakville's Megann VanderVliet earned all-American honours as she helped the Calvin College women's track and field team finish second at NCAA Division III track and field championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The host University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh won the national title with 57 points while Calvin College earned 44.5. VanderVliet, a senior at Calvin, earned a fourth-place finish in the discus Thursday and a fifth in the shot put a day later, narrowly missing out on her second national collegiate medal. The 21-year-old, originally recruited to play soccer at Calvin, won a bronze medal in shot put at nationals in her freshman year. After turning in a season-best throw of 13.59m in a steady rain during qualifying, VanderVliet was in third place with one round of throws remaining. In that final round, both Kayla Sharpee of Winconsin Oshkosh and Krista Hasselquist of Winconsin River Falls had identical throws of 13.77m to bump VanderVliet into fifth. VanderVliet still had one chance remaining. "I tried to block everything out and thought what happens, happens," VanderVliet said in a Calvin College release. "My hands and neck were wet and I'm not sure how it happened, but I heard the crowd cheer [when it landed] and I knew it was alright." The throw came up just shy of her earlier mark, checking in at13.47m. Despite not picking up a medal, VanderVliet wasn't disappointed by her results. "I'm thrilled being an All-American again," said VanderVliet. "Maybe the weather could have been better and then I could have done better, but it's a season best and I have to be happy with it." VanderVliet was also in position for a medal until the final round in the discus. Sitting third after a final qualifying throw of 43.15m, it again came down to the last round. This time it was Augustana's Marissa Banks throwing 43.40m on her last attempt to edge VanderVliet by 0.25m. VanderVliet earned nine of Calvin's 44.5 team points. More Pond Myths Debunked Water in the landscape is a lifestyle more and more people are choosing every day. Check back each week as we dispel some of the common myths surrounding this latest trend in gardening. Myth 5: Water features are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Fact: Mosquitoes breed in still, standing water. A well-designed backyard water garden has lots of water flow, in which mosquitoes don't like to breed. Also, ponds and water gardens support fish, frogs, toads and other wildlife that are natural predators of mosquitoes. Longhorns open NFC season tonight at Bronte The new-look Oakville Longhorns will kick off the Northern Football Conference season tonight with a home game against the Toronto Maddogs. is slated for 7 p.m. Hornets golf fundraiser This year's Oakville Hornets Girls Hockey Association golf and dinner fundraiser will be held Sunday, June 10 at Deerfield Golf Club. Registration will be held from 9-10 a.m., with tee times commencing at 11 a.m. (scramble format). Use of the driving range and practice green is available. A buffet dinner will follow the day of golf. Cost per player is $95 (including golf and dinner), while carts are available at an extra charge ($34 per two-person cart). Businesses can also sponsor a hole for $200 or donate towards the prize table. The Oakville Hornets Girls Hockey Association is a volunteer-based organization that provides house league and rep hockey for girls between the ages of 5-19. For more information or to register for the event, contact tournament chairman Andy Crowe by phone at 905-8446000 or by e-mail at andy.anmar@sympatico.ca. SPORTSBRIEFS Oakville will be led this season by head coach Barry Emo, who spent the past several years directing the Longhorns' main rival, the Milton Marauders. Star linebacker Wayne Slewinsky, who co-owned the Marauders with Emo before the two sold the club during the offseason, has also rejoined Oakville this year. The Longhorns, in their 30th anniversary season, feature many other new players, including two-time Hec Creighton Award-winning quarterback Tommy Denison. Game time at Bronte Athletic Field MOHA adding rep teams The Minor Oaks Hockey Association will likely add minor atom AE (additional entry), minor midget AE and miget AA teams to its rep system next season, bringing the total of rep clubs up to 35. MOHA rep vice-president Keith Murray made the announcement at the association's annual general meeting last week, also recounting the success that MOHA teams enjoyed in the 2006-07 campaign. Nineteen of 32 MOHA teams were league champions or finalists, regularseason champions or OMHA champions or finalists. Listen to for more www.terragreenhouses.com 905-332-3222 Burlington Waterdown 905-689-1999 905-876-4000 Milton 905-832-6955 Vaughan 7 DAYS A WEEK!