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

Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Hopedale junior girls win provincial bowling title By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Sports 23 | Friday, April 4, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com "Connected to your Community" Having already demonstrated an ability to rise to the occasion, the Hopedale junior girls' team should be in good shape as it heads to the Youth Bowling Council national championships. Following up their victory at the zone championships, the Hopedale squad scored a convincing victory, winning by more than 200 points to take the junior girls' title at the Ontario 5-Pin Youth Bowling 4 Step Provincial Championships in Stoney Creek last month. Emily Kerr, Samantha Aubin, Paige Parker and Katherine Burt turned in a five-game total score of 3,825 to earn their spot in the Canadian championships May 3-5 in Winnipeg. Their tournament was highlighted by a score of 955 in the second round. The score topped the next best game by any other team in junior girls' ranks by 160 points. In fact, it would have topped the best score in the junior boys' competition by more than 80 points. It was one of only three 900s bowled by a girls' team at provincials, with the other two both in the senior ranks. It was topped only by a 969 turned in by the senior champions from London. The team did not win the Ontario title on that one game alone, though. It went into provincials with a 657 average and topped that mark in each of its five games. And it beat its nearest rival, Cornwall's Olympia Bowl, in Hawtin, Vipers to play for Canadian wheelchair hoops championship in Burlington This weekend, she's taking on the best in the country. In a couple of months, Melanie Hawtin will be taking on the best in the world. Hawtin and her Burlington Viper teammates will be looking to top 11 other teams to win the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League open champions. The national championship begins today (Friday) at 9 a.m. and continues through to Sunday, April 6 at the Haber Recreation Centre in Burlington (3040 Tim Dobbie Dr., off Dundas west of Appleby Line). Hawtin was named to the Canadian w o m e n 's wheelchair basketball team earlier this Melanie Hawtin year. The Oakville native, who previously competed in track, will play at the world women's championships in Toronto June 20-28. Joining her on the Vipers will be Burlington's Brandon Wagner, a member the Canadian's Paralympic gold-medal winning men's team. Round-robin games are played all day Friday, with the Vipers facing the QC Bulldogs at 9 a.m. and the Paratroopers at 1 p.m. First- and second-place finishers in the four three-team pools advance to quarter-finals at 9 and 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, with semifinals scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday. The gold-medal game will be played Sunday at 2 p.m. The bronze final will precede it at noon. The national championships feature some of Canada's best wheelchair basketball players, including past, present and future members of Team Canada. The Hopedale junior girls' team won the Ontario Youth Bowling Council provincial championship in convincing fashion, with a five-game score of 3,825, more than 200 better than their closest rival. The team, including (from left) Paige Parker, Samantha Aubin, Emily Kerr, Katie Burt and coach Jessica Cyr, separated itself from the pack by posting a game of 955 in the second round. | photo by Eric Riehl -- Oakville Beaver four of the five rounds, dropping the third by a slim three-point margin. "It was absolutely amazing to watch them bowl all those games," said Hopedale coach Jessica Cyr. "Our team goal was (to average) 700." The Hopedale squad did better than that, finishing with a 765 average at provincials. But until the team finished its final round with a 684 (its lone score under 700), it had no idea where it stood in the competition. "I'm big on not looking at scores," Cyr said. "The girls didn't know they had won until they finished bowling." Hopedale's senior girls' team -- comprised of Brittany Watson, Kendra Hole, Rachael Seaborne and North Park Bowl's Katie Wolfsbane -- also had a strong showing at provincials, bringing home a bronze medal. The team improved its score in each of its first four games, climbing from 770 in its opener to a high of 867 in the fourth round. Still, it entered the final round in fifth place. Coming through with another strong game, 857, in the final round, the Hopedale squad, coached by Kendra Hole, leapfrogged teams from Oshawa and Windsor to earn the bronze medal. Novice Venom shuts down Niagara Falls to take OBA Division 3 gold By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff For some, it might have been a coach's worst nightmare. For Mike Neale, it was a dream come true. Eight of the 11 players on his Oakville Venom novice girls' basketball team are daughters of basketball coaches. That could have easily led to plenty of second guessing and meddling. Instead, Neale said it was nothing but a positive experience. "The additional coaching they got at home really helped out," he said. "When you're getting that much coaching, it's only going to help and I think it had a big hand in our success." It certainly paid off in last weekend's Ontario Basketball Association Division 3 championship in Ajax. When Oakville's usually reliable offence struggled in the goldmedal game, the players' knowledge of how to defend carried the team to a 17-7 victory over Niagara Falls. "Their defence was incredible," Neale said. "Niagara Falls was a team that had been scoring 30 or 40 points a game. It's true what they say, offence wins games but defence wins championships." The Venom didn't have to rely on its defence after averaging 35 points in its first three games of the tournament. But suddenly Oakville's shots stopped falling in the final. "Our girls, for some reason, the bounces just weren't going their way. The opportunities were there but shots that typically go in for them were bouncing out," Neale said. "Sometimes you can't miss and sometimes nothing goes in. We had girls who had 10 points (in earlier games) who couldn't buy a point." That's when the defence came to the rescue. The Venom had demonstrated its ability on both sides of the ball throughout the tournament. Oakville opened with a 48-12 victory over the Etobicoke Thunder in the opening game. The following day Oakville doubled up on Blessed Sacrament Moulden 24-12 and then earned its spot in the final, winning its biggest challenge of the tournament by edging the Windsor Valiants 3328. Neale said having a close team that gets along with one another was a key factor in being able to play a team game and that the Venom players showed a big improvement in their skills over the course of the season. "At the end of the day, they really came together for the provincials," he said. And with five underage players eligible to return to the novice ranks next season, Neale said he wouldn't be surprised to see the team take a run at the Division 1 championship. · See photo on page 24