Sports

Going for the Green for Skate Park

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

The development of green spaces for the Rotary Club of Vegreville, (RCV) BMX and Skate Park is currently underway at the school yard of Vegreville Composite High School.

Workers launch the development of green spaces for the skate park.

(Rosanne Fortier/Photo)

Workers launch the development of green spaces for the skate park.

(Rosanne Fortier/Photo)

Patti Johnston, Chair of Rotary Skate Park Committee, said, “The Rotary Club of Vegreville is excited to have the pathways started for the green space which will surround the skate park. We are grateful to B&W Asphalt for the work completed to date.

Watch for further additions to the green space in the coming months. We hope to announce a construction start date for the skate park soon.”

Vegreville Blue Jays are Powerline Baseball Champions

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

Around 200 spectators watched the Vegreville Blue Jays win the 2022 championship (final game for the 2022 season) when they played against the Armena Royals on August 9 at Riverside Vegreville Ball Diamonds.

Vegreville Blue Jays Manager and Player Stephen Hrabec said, “For the first time since 1992, the Vegreville Blue Jays are the Powerline Baseball League (PBL) Champions. The franchise was originally based out of Holden but relocated to Vegreville in 2021.

The Holden team did not play from the mid-90s until 2009. In 2010, the team was revived and since that time the team has played in seven championship series. We are very pleased to have finally achieved our ultimate goal.

We won the championship 2-0 versus Armena. We won Game 1 at Armena by a score of 7-1 on Aug. 4 and Game 2 at Vegreville on Aug. 9. We defeated the Rosalind Athletics in the semi-finals 2-0 as well and completed the season on a ninegame winning streak.”

Front row from L-R: Stephen Hrabec, Alan Ziegler, Zak Lang, Tag Weder, Colten Ziegler, Jesse Mihalcheon. Back row from L-R: Mike Henry, Kyle Muzechka, Grayson Soprovich, Craig Weder, Randall Ziegler.

(Vegreville Blue Jays/Submitted Photo)

Hrabec added, “We achieved this goal because we are a great team with extremely talented baseball players. We have also kept the same core group of players over the years while adding a few very helpful pieces. We have also benefited from experience, especially hitting, where we have improved significantly over the years. Most importantly, we are a close team and we wanted it for each other.

We are extremely excited and relieved to finally be the PBL Champions. We were so close on too many occasions, but overcoming that adversity has made the victory extra special,” Hrabec explained.

When asked what they plan to go on to do now, Hrabec said, “We are anticipating that we will have close to the same team next year while also hoping to recruit a few more players, ideally younger players who will help the team survive for more than just a few more years.”

Vegreville Man Recruiting Players for Basketball Team

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

Vegreville resident Wayne Camantigue is recruiting local basketball players to play on an all men’s team this upcoming season.

“We are looking for members to join our Vegreville team that plays at St. Paul Filipino Community Basketball League. But the intent is to eventually have a league of our own.

Right now, people will have to travel to go to play every Saturday for about a month and a half to St. Paul, but they can carpool. Eventually, they will not have to do this as we hope to form our own league in Vegreville,” Wayne mentioned.

Camantigue, one of the organizers for the team, said explains how it all got started. “I thought of an idea of a basketballteam over here because some people from Vegreville Filipino Community and myself got together to play just to have fun. We went to participate in the St. Paul’s Filipino Basketball League at St. Paul where we started playing on May 29 and we won a bronze medal award overall and Championship Game’s Three Point Shoot Out Competition was won by one of our great players on the team, Troy Llusala on July 3.

Standing from L-R: Coach Charlie Llusala, Hani Musama, Clyde Herrera and RJ De Guzman. Kneeling from L-R: Charles Llusala, Wayne Camantigue, Blasé De Guzman, Troy Llusala, Three Point Shoot Out Winner, Jakob Pantaleon and Karl Anquilero. Missing from photo: Assistant Coach Joey Llusala, Tristan Llusala, Sandy Evora, Edward Rarama, Alastair Anquilero and Renz Rarama.

(Edward Dizon/Submitted Photo)

Also, I am interested in forming this team as I grew up in the Philippines and basketball was very popular there. We played all the time since childhood and some of us got good at it because as they say practice makes perfect.

If we can form this basketball team boys 15 years and older can join as well as all adult men. They only have to live in Vegreville as we will be representing the community. We will wait and see how it will go as we will have to form a committee to decide how it should be operated it. Then we will form the rules and decide how it will be run in a professional way.

Our goal in forming this team is to inspire people to be active and take part in sports; especially the youth as they will be the future basketball players. This will help with wellness, build their confidence, camaraderie and awareness about how basketball is played on a professional team.

If this team is formed, we plan to practice weekly and participate in an annual championship game.”