At press time, Roberts Creek’s Kyla Richey was set to go up against the Dominican Republic in women’s volleyball at the Pan American Games in Team Canada’s first match on Thursday, July 16.
The team is coming off their best finish at the annual Pan Am Cup (June 11 to 22) since 2004, ending in fifth place.
They just finished competing in the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB) World Grand Prix. They started in Puerto Rico (July 3 to 5) then flew to Argentina to play from July 10 to 12. From Argentina they flew straight to Toronto for the Pan Am Games and landed July 14.
In recent games Richey scored 18 points against Peru on June 15, 14 points against Argentina on June 19 and 15 points against Colombia on June 20.
Team Canada’s next match at the Pan Am Games is Saturday against Cuba, followed Monday against Argentina. Quarter-finals begin Wednesday, July 22.
Shooting
Gibsons shooter Allan Harding missed the mark getting into the final round at the Pan Am Games last weekend in Toronto.
“On that day that’s just how it worked out,” Harding said. “Different day might have had a different result.”
Harding scored 559-16x and placed 21st in the qualifying round. David Munoz from Panama came first in the qualifying round with 577-18x but was beaten for first by Brazil’s Felipe Almeida Wu in the finals.
Harding isn’t disheartened, explaining that he’s learned a lot and will bring his knowledge to the Canadian National Pistol Championship in Camrose, Alta., at the end of August.
He said he has made some significant changes to his shooting style in the last couple of months.
“Talking to my coach, we realized we’ve changed a bunch of things so the style I’m using for shooting is kind of new,” Harding said. “Now we know what the baseline is for this new style. It definitely helped me to skip out on things like fatigue.”
Harding said he’s feeling good about going to Nationals.
“I think if I continue down this way of training … it’s going to go pretty good,” he said.
The Nationals are scheduled for Aug. 21 to 26.
