The first storms of spring have come and graced us with their presence, bringing that exciting feeling one gets when they start to plan their perfect garden for the spring and summer. It is a time of reflection and action in sports, as much as it is a time spent nurturing a garden to life. The fall teams will be reflecting on this last season and are already making moves to prepare for a strong upcoming season.
With the return of spring comes the return of golf to the Cascades game schedules that see our women’s team on a solid podium-finish run against some tough teams. Baseball is coming around the first corner of April, and the Cascades soccer teams got to play one last hurrah in the Keg Spring Cup.
The Cascades soccer teams played in the UVic Vikings’ Keg Spring Cup on Mar. 19 and 20. The Keg Spring Cup is an annual two-day non-conference tournament hosted on Vancouver Island and showcases some of the best regional university-level soccer teams while offering a final farewell to the seniors on the team. It also offers coaches the chance to scout players and fill in their team lineup for the upcoming fall season.
Unfortunately, the women’s team took two losses the weekend of the Cup: one against UVic, the home team, and a final loss against the TWU Spartans for a fourth-place finish. The men played two epic matches — a good return to form for the Cascades men, who made it into the Canada West Final 4 last season but suffered two losses in the playoffs, particularly a brutal 0-5 loss at the hands of UVic. The Cascades men came out strong at the Kegger, winning 2-0 against the hosts, UVic Vikings, in their first game. Then, a brilliant final game against the TWU Spartans led to a Taylor Richardson hat-trick and went down to the wire even in the shoot-out that ended in a 4-3 Cascades win. This crowned our men’s team the Keg champs.
Golf returned earlier in March with a series of podium finishes this month. The men’s team tied for first place with UBC, and the women’s team finished second at UVic’s shoot-out on Mar. 6 and 7. The women took third place at the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate (RMI) on Mar. 15 and 16. and another huge third-place finish at the UCSC Spring Invite on Mar. 26 and 27, just behind George Fox University and Pomona-Pitzer.
Lucy Park led the Cascades women’s scoresheet in both tournaments, shooting 11 over par after a choppy back nine at the RMI, but she had a great round on Mar. 27 at the UCSC Spring Invite. After a rough couple of bogies in the first three holes, Park found a rhythm and birdied four out of six holes to end the front nine two under par. However, a trio of bogies tarnished a near-perfect back nine that brought Park to her one-over-par score and tied for individual third overall for the weekend.
UFV will host its own tournament, the UFV Spring Invitational, on Apr. 2 and 3 at the Chilliwack Golf Club.
The UFV baseball team kicks off their season this weekend in Kamloops to play against the TRU Wolfpack on Apr. 2, followed by hosting them at Fairfield Park in Chilliwack the next day on Apr. 3 at 1:00 p.m. There won’t be any shortage of baseball this summer semester with lots of home games through the months of April and May for those of us students who relentlessly tire ourselves with summer school.
The entire UFV Athletics schedule can be found online at cascades.ca/calendar.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.
