High schools on the Sunshine Coast are gearing up for the fall sports season. Athletes are expected to score points, stop their opponents from scoring points, and win games.
Big sports on the Coast this season are volleyball, basketball, soccer, cross-country running, ultimate and golf.
Adding to that, Pender Harbour Secondary is offering boys’ rugby. Elphinstone Secondary is featuring track and field, and Chatelech Secondary is introducing a new mountain biking team.
Chatelech vice-principal Mark Sauer is in charge of the school’s athletics department. Sauer said he is already looking into expanding the new mountain biking team.
“We’ve got a mountain biking team with a resurgence and we’re going to try to encourage a few more if I can barter with some of the teachers here and outside coaches to see if we can get some more programs up and running,” Sauer said.
“Here at Chatelech we have some exceptional players, but the team as a whole is what I like to focus on,” he said.
Pender Harbour’s rugby team is coached by principal Paul Bishop. Due to the relatively small size of the school, Bishop said they typically have to combine players from grades 9 to 12 for their senior teams.
“The level of competition is excellent,” Bishop said of Pender Harbour Secondary. “We’ve got the community sports up here – soccer in particular is massive. All of the kids play and they play very high-level soccer. There’s a good sense of both skill and sportsmanship.”
Volleyball games are starting this week. Elphinstone physical education instructor Clint Fox said his teams will play once or twice a week through October and November before going into their playoffs.
“We have some fantastic athletes in our school. We’ll just have to see how these teams come together,” Fox said. “In the past our volleyball teams have been extremely competitive and there are always cross-country runners who are very competitive as well.”
This past week the Grade 9 Elphinstone girls volleyball team played Chatelech in the Elphinstone gym on Monday, the senior girls played Chatelech on Tuesday and the Grade 9 girls played again against Sutherland Secondary on Wednesday.
The fall is a great time for sports; keep reading as we follow our local athletes on the Coast from juvenile to senior leagues.
