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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Wednesday, April 9, 2014 | 18 Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Nine Oakville players selected in OHL draft by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor Sports "Connected to your Community" Hockey scouts say Kyle Maksimovich makes up for a lack of size with his bravery. Maksimovich has a theory on where the latter attribute comes from. "My dad's a construction worker who works 30 feet under the ground in tunnels. He's pretty brave with that," said the 5-foot-8, 150-pound left wing. "I've always been taught to be fearless going into the corners. Get in there as fast as you can and get out of there as fast as you can." Oakville Aquatic Club member Evan White, pictured in action earlier this season, is one of four local swimmers who qualified for this year's Commonwealth Games last weekend at national team trials. | Oakville Beaver file photo Four swimmers qualify for CW Games Three Oakville Aquatic Club swimmers and another Oakville native have been named to the Canadian team that will compete at the Commonwealth Games this July in Glasgow, Scotland. Gamal Assaad, Evan White and Marni Oldershaw earned the right to represent Canada after posting times at last weekend's Canadian Swimming Trials that ranked among the top 16 in the world. Tera Van Beilen, an OAK product who now swims for the University of British Columbia Dolphins and narrowly missed reaching the 100-meter breaststroke final at the 2012 Olympic Summer Games in London, was also selected to the 30-person Commonwealth swimming squad. White nearly set a Canadian record in the men's 200m individual medley, clocking a personal-best time of 1:59.84. The 18-year-old was 0.3 seconds under the Canadian record before heading into the final freestyle length. "I was trying to break the record and I could hear the crowd," said White, who was also second in 200m breaststroke and third in 100m butterfly. "It was a good swim." Oldershaw was one of three women to go under the qualifying standard in the 200m individual medley, finishing second to Ottawa's Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson with a time of 2:13.72. "To have three girls go under the standard is something," Seltenreich-Hodgson said. "We are an IM country." Assaad finished second in the 100m butterfly and third in the 50m butterfly. Van Beilen won the women's 50m breaststroke. Fellow OAK product Zack Chetrat won the men's 200m butterfly. Two other OAK swimmers -- Dominique Bouchard and Mack Darragh -- will join White, Oldershaw, Assaad and Van Beilen on the 36-person Canadian team that will compete at August's Pan Pacific Championships in Gold Coast, Australia. "I am so proud of these guys," OAK head coach Sean Baker said. "No one deserves it more!" Darragh was third in the 200m butterfly at trials and tied White for second in the 200m breaststroke. Bouchard finished fourth in a world-class backstroke field. "Our selection policies this year for both (Pan Pacific and Commonwealth games) teams were based on world standards. We set criteria for both teams based on the 16th-fastest time in each event from the Barcelona 2013 FINA World Championships," said Swimming Canada high performance director John Atkinson. "It's not about becoming a national champion but attaining a standard that will be competitive internationally," Atkinson added. "Over the next two years, this is the direction we're going to continue to head in. The goal for every athlete making the Canadian senior team is to progress from morning heat swims to semifinals and finals." OAK's Matthew Mac will represent Canada at the Youth Olympic Games Aug. 1722 in Nanjing, China. Canada is sending a team of 15- and 16-year-olds to compete at the 18-and-under event. "We're using that multi-sport international experience as a stepping stone," said national junior coach Ken McKinnon. Kyle Maksimovich, pictured in action with the Toronto Marlies minor midget AAA team this past season. | photo submitted Maksimovich was the first of nine Oakville residents to be picked in Saturday's Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection, chosen by the Erie Otters in the third round (59th overall). He'll be reunited in the Pennsylvania city with brother Quentin, who has helped the Otters reach the second round of the OHL playoffs in his rookie season. Though Quentin is two years older than Kyle, the two have played on the same line in the past when Kyle was called up to play for Quentin's Toronto Marlies teams. "I'd definitely love being linemates with (Quentin in the OHL). He's a lot bigger than me so he could protect me, too, and we've got that brotherly chemistry that we know where each other is going to be," said 16-year-old Kyle, who had 24 goals and 34 assists in 33 games last year for the minor midget Marlies. "Being young, it might also be hard mentally to be there without my parents. I'm glad he's there because he's someone I can talk to and share everything with." Quentin is also excited about having his younger brother join him in Erie. see Six on p.19 Chetrat named U of T's top athlete for third time Zack Chetrat is the first straight Canadian Interunithree-time winner of the versity Sport national title University of Toronto's malethis season. athlete-of-the-year award. He earned four medals at The Oakville native rethe national championships, ceived the most recent honincluding his fifth career our at U of T's annual athletic 200-metre butterfly title. banquet awards March 29. The five-time OUA all-star Chetrat led the Blues men's and CIS all-Canadian was swim team to its 11th con- Zack Chetrat also named the OUA male secutive Ontario University swimmer of the year for the Athletics championship and its second second straight season.