Sports Stuff
By Ned Bekavac
Guelph’s Wesley Cain has committed to play NCAA Division 1 soccer at Wright State University starting in the 2013 season.
Cain, who has played for the Canada under-17 squad, is currently in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), hitting the pitch for the Northwestern Ohio soccer team, a squad that includes his brother, Travin. The school is in Lima, OH. The team has won its last two games to improve to 5-6-0 on the season.
Both bros. attended Centennial CVI in Guelph.
Wright State University is in Dayton, OH.
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Ijeoma Staunton played a double header earlier this season, but it’s not baseball we’re talking about. The Guelph CVI Green Gaels basketball player suited up for both the junior and senior teams in back-to-back District 10 games against Centennial CVI.
Staunton, who was Guelph CVI’s junior girls athlete of the year last school year, chalked up 11 points as the senior Gaels beat Centennial in her second of two games. Earlier, she scored 13 points as the junior Gaels beat the Centennial juniors .
Her dad, Kevin, is one of the GCVI cage coaches and he informs us that this was a one-off as league rules allow a junior player to play just one game for a senior team per season, and that Ijeoma played as an emergency replacement.
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Two of the five recent inductees into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame have Guelph connections.
Former NHL great Andy Bathgate and former Canadian Olympic women’s hockey player Cassie Campbell were two of the inductees honoured at a recent ceremony in Toronto.
Bathgate won a Memorial Cup with the Guelph Biltmore Madhatters in the early 1950s. His grandson, also Andy Bathgate, is currently a member of the Guelph Gryphons men’s hockey team.
Campbell is a University of Guelph graduate who represented the women’s hockey Gryphons from 1992-1996 who went on to be be part of the Hockey Night in Canada television broadcast crew.
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Former Guelph Storm defenseman Kyle Pereira has been drafted by the National Lacrosse League’s Toronto Rock.
Pereira, a Brampton native, was taken by the Rock in the third round of the NLL draft.
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Guelph’s Rich Peverley of the Boston Bruins will play pucks in Finland.
He has signed with Finnish team JYP, which plays in the SM-liiga, according to the club’s website, reports the Boston Herald.
Peverley is an Our Lady of Lourdes graduate who won the Stanley Cup with the Bruins the season before last. Several NHL players have signed to play overseas during the current lockout.
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This year’s Guelph Gryphons women’s rugby team includes four Guelph players, all of them graduates of John F. Ross CVI.
On the team are stalwarts stalwarts Morganne Linthwaite, in her fifth year, Caitlin McNally, fourth, and rookies Alexis Oksanen and Alyssa McDonald. And Mark Yanchus, Gryphons’ assistant coach, is coach of the Ross girls’ rugby team.
McDonald recently got the first try of her OUA career in a win over Western. The undefeated Gryphons, the defending national champs and current No. 2-ranked team in Canada, host Brock on Saturday in OUA quarterfinal play.
Game time is 1 p.m.
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Carly Rolph scored a goal in each of the first two OUA women’s hockey games for the Western Mustangs to start the season.
Rolph (Our Lady of Lourdes) is a third-year player and captain of the Mustangs.
The Stangs are off to a 2-0-0 start that included the team’s first ever win over Wilfrid Laurier.
This Sunday, they host the Guelph Gryphons, who include a former teammate of Rolph’s at Lourdes, in Kandace Charbonneau. Guelph is also 2-0-0 and Charbonneau had a goal in the team’s second win.
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The Gryphons baseball team is in St. Catharines this weekend looking to win its first-ever OUA title. Guelph enters the four-team tourney as the No. 2 seed.
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Kicker Julian Tropea has been named both the CIS and OUA special teams football player of the week.
The native of Niagara Falls, Ont., was five-for-five in field goals in Guelph’s 42-39 win over Western on Saturday at home.
The 5-1 Gryphons host 5-1 Queen’s on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Alumni Stadium.
