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47 | Thursday, December 15, 2016 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com Kevin Nagel Sports Editor sports@oakviNebeaver.com Sports By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff "Connected to yo u r Community " Duffy seventh in return to World Cup speed skating Oakville's Patrick Duffy earned a seventh-place fin ish in his return to the World C u p short track speed skat ing circuit. Duffy, who m issed the first two events of the sea son, finished second in Sun day's 1,000-metre B final at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Beijing, China. The 25-year-old also teamed up with Charlie Cournoyer, Samuel Girard and Charles Hamelin to help Canada finish ninth in the m en's relay. Saturday, Duffy w as elimi nated in the 500m sem ifi nal repechage, placing 24th overall. "It's good to be back and overall it w as a pretty good day," he said following Fri day's heats. "The 500m w as quite tough, as was the 1500m , which was also quite fast. I'm still struggling a lit tle bit to get back in the flow of international racing. But overall, it w as pretty good." Duffy and the Canadian team will travel to Gangneung, South Korea for the next World Cup event, which begins Friday. It will be held on the track that will host the 2018 Olympics. YoungAquinas teamemerges as Haltonvolleyball contenders The St. Thom as Aquinas Raiders had al ready dropped the first set of the season opener and trailed the Hayden H uskies 22-18 in the second. Coach Peter Szpakow ski knew there would be growing pains this season. Fourteen of the 15 players from last year's Halton finalists had graduated -- Paulina Clifford w as the lone holdover -- and the Raiders had a starting lineup that includ ed four junior-aged players. Aquinas has proven to be full of sur prises, though. Against Hayden, the Raid ers took seven of the final eight points to win the second set and then carried the m om entum into the third, winning 15-9 to take the match. Thursday, Aquinas sw ept the Bishop Reding Royals, who were 2-0 com ing into the match. The 25-16, 25-10 victory improved the Raiders to 3-0 and extend ed their regular-season winning streak to 13 matches. "It's been better than expected," Szpak owski said. "I figured it w as a rebuilding year, but we lucked out." The rebuild w as accelerated when the Vesovic family m oved to Oakville from Milton, bringing sisters Marina, a m em ber of the Halton H urricanes' national under-15 cham pionship team, and Kat and to the Raiders. "We had a really good group of young kids," Szpakow ski said. "Then you add those two and it's made u s a contender." The timeline w as also pushed up by the im provements in players like Megan Duffy and Lisa Papara, a pair of Grade 10s who have also earned spots in the starting rotation. "W hat you finish with in the spring is not always w hat you come back with in the fall," Szpakow ski said. "They worked hard and really im proved." Those two, along with Grade 11 setter Alisa Ermarkaryan picked up valuable experience last year when they joined the senior team at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations tournament. The Raiders are already seeing the ben efits. In addition to its 3-0 start Aquinas has won tournam ents at McMaster Uni versity and Mentor College. Szpakow ski said a little overconfi dence m ay have crept in during the Raid ers' m ost recent tournament, where they were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Halton rival Loyola. The Aquinas coach says it's hard to call any decision an upset, though. With a strong base of talented players spread across the region, the race for top spot is wide open. In ju st the second week of the season, there are only three unde feated teams remaining (Abbey Park and Georgetown are the others) am ong Halton's 18 tier 1 teams. "We'll have to see where we are in Feb ruary. All the team s have really talented players. There are no easy gam es in our league," Szpakow ski said. "There's so m uch rep volleyball now and the high schools are reaping the benefits." Though the Raiders have exceeded expectations so far, the real benefit for Aquinas will be a core group of players that will get three years of experience at the senior level. "It will be huge down the road," Szpakow ski said. "We thought we would have a good two-year run and this year is a bonus. We didn't expect to be beating teams with older veteran players." Sarah DaSilva (1 4 ) and Megan Duffy (1 3 ) leap to block a Bishop Reding attack in last Thursday's Halton senior girls' high school volleyball game. The Grade 10 students are am ong the four junior-aged starters on the Aquinas team, that despite its youth, is off to a 3 -0 start following its 25 -1 6 , 2 5 -1 0 win over Bishop Reding and is again emerging a s a contender for the Halton championship. | photo by Graham Paine - Oakville Beaver GAS FIREPLACE REPAIR Factory Trained Service Tech & Electronic Ignition Specialists * First-step quickness * Reaction skills * Puck control * Power & acceleration + Explosiveness I ^ Srfm iM ce to ,tk Vi^ermct! We e W Se e rv rv ic ic e e: : S CFM . CFM , DRU. DRU, GSW. GSW, Hunter Hunter, [ATsYJg ^ITH STlC W "^ H o m e S ta rs B k Puckwork implemented throughout the program * An excellent studentto-instructor ratio TIMES NOV - JAN TIMESLOTS: AGE & LEVELS DAYS Insta-Flame, Valor, Napoleon, Regency, Majestic, Heat-N-Glo, Heatilator, Selkirk, GTI, Dovre, Pacific Energy, Town & Country, Security, Hearthstone, B est o f S o & tittf VneM em e S e t t e e `% 2 ! 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