Team BC Results Recap Aug 14
The water at Macdonald Island Park was golden for Special Olympics athlete Jesse Shade (Campbell River) at the 2015 Western Canada Summer Games. Four gold medals in the pool were just the beginning for the sixteen year old Vancouver Island swimmer. Competing against swimmers eight to ten years his senior, Shade continues to demonstrate tremendous power in the pool. His times are comparable to ‘able bodied’ athletes. Shade also shaved four seconds off his personal best time in the 50m backstroke and two seconds off his personal best time in the 100m freestyle on Aug. 13. A day later, Shade was back in the water and a full eight seconds faster than his competition, finishing the 100m backstroke with a time of 1:06.26. Shade was five seconds off his personal best to claim the gold for Team BC. A second gold later that day in the 50m freestyle in a time of 27:66.
Several other medals were won in the pool today including a sweep in the 200m butterfly buy Jordyn Ryan (Comox) for the women and Colin Gilbert (Kamloops) for the men. Ian Ralston (Campbell River) won gold in the 100m Para butterfly, while Team BC also won gold in the men’s and women’s 50m freestyle. Wendy Yang (Burnaby) touched in 25.43 for the women’s 50m free, while Tai Long Singh (Point Roberts) touched in 23.30 to take gold in the men’s. In total today BC swimmers brought in 25 medals of which 15 were gold, four were silver and six were bronze.
Team BC badminton continued their outstanding success on their second day of mixed competition with a 9-0 win over Manitoba. Kylie Cheng (Vancouver) was outstanding in her singles match winning 21-4 and 21-6 over Manitoba’s Claire Meier, while Cheng and team mate Jenna Wong (Surrey) also won their doubles match in two sets 21-12 and 21-2. BC continued to dominate beating Nunavut 9-0 later in the day.
On the water the BC men’s eights posted the fasted time in their preliminary race. The BC crew of Oliver Dugbartey (Victoria), James Houston (Richmond), Kenneth Huang (Vancouver), Will James (Victoria), Liam Keane (Victoria), Miles Tickner (Victoria), Sean van Gessel (Victoria) and Ryan Watt (Victoria) crossed in 2:16.78 to qualify for the eights final where they went on to win gold, beating Alberta with a time of 2:15.69.
In baseball Team BC came out on top winning 18-3 over Manitoba to regroup after last night’s late loss to Alberta. This was the only game of the day for BC who now post a 3-1 record with two games left to go in round-robin play.
A trio of BC women led the charge on the golf course today as Hannah Lee (Surrey), Tiffany Kong (Vancouver) and Alisha Lau (Richmond) are first and tied for second, respectively, on the leader board. Lee shot a 72, while Kong and Lau both finished with 73 in the first of three rounds at Fort McMurray
Golf Course. Team BC golfer A.J. Ewart (Coquitlam) leads the individual men’s competition after an opening round score of 71. Ewart has a three-stroke gap on second-placed Tayden Wallin of Saskatchewan, who shot 74. Tristan Mandur (Mill Bay) and Keenan Flemming (Sechelt) shot 76 and 78, respectively, for Team BC. All teams will be out on the course again tomorrow, Aug. 15, at 8:00 a.m. for the women and 9:00 a.m. for the men.
In softball, Team BC women dropped Saskatchewan 7-4 and beat Alberta 9-2 in their opening two games of the day. Manitoba served BC their first loss of the tournament, 7-5, although BC are still atop the standings with a 5-1 record. Manitoba trails with a 4-2 record and Alberta are split 3-3.
On the courts, Team BC’s women’s volleyball team women were dealt their first loss in their first game of the day. BC lost 3-2 to Alberta in five sets, while later in the day BC beat Saskatchewan in three close sets winning 25-17, 25-23 and 25-18.
The men’s volleyball team cruised past the Yukon in their opening game of the day winning in three sets, while they were dealt their first loss of the tournament by Alberta in their second game of the day. Alberta went 3-0 over BC with the third set being very close, just 25-22.