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The Top-5 North Shore sports stories of 2017

It’s almost Christmas, time to hand out the gifts that North Shore athletes have been waiting for all year: those coveted spots on our annual list of the top five North Shore sports stories of the year.

It’s almost Christmas, time to hand out the gifts that North Shore athletes have been waiting for all year: those coveted spots on our annual list of the top five North Shore sports stories of the year.

This year we’ve got two distance runners on the list – that’s become a North Shore specialty – as well as a strong squad out of Seycove and a baseball club that won darn near everything. But topping the list, as voted on by the North Shore News sports editorial board, is a football team that won it all this year, a small group of players who came up huge in a dominant season. Here’s the list, starting at the top.

1. Windsor wins everything

It wasn’t just the dominance of the Windsor Dukes football team that made them special this year – although they did go 10-0 and end the season as the AA provincial champs – it was the way they did it all with a very small core group of players who honed their skills playing with and against each other for more than a decade.

High school football in B.C. features a wide range of roster sizes and makeups, with many of the big AAA teams fielding squads of 40 or more players along with monster coaching staffs, while on the other side are a lot of the AA schools that sometimes have trouble finding enough players to cover all the positions on the field.

The Windsor Dukes definitely fell into the latter category, fielding a roster that started at 23 but was quickly whittled down through injuries. A mid-season article by high school football reporting guru Howard Tsumura said that the Dukes were taking it game-by-game, unsure they would have enough players to field a team on any given weekend.

“If we suffer an injury or two, that could end our season,” head coach Jim Schuman told Tsumura. “And so the way we look at it, each week is like our championship.”

The team certainly played like each week was a championship – they never lost. During the regular season they beat teams by an average of 31 points per game. The playoffs arrived and nothing changed – the Dukes continued to dominate while taking on the best AA teams in the province.

Dukes
The Windsor Dukes celebrate their win in the AA provincial football final Saturday at BC Place. photo Mary Kessenich/Vancouver Sports Pictures

The season culminated in a 44-29 win over Abbotsford Secondary in the final played at BC Place. The Dukes were a lean and mean machine by the end, counting on only eight or nine key players to play offence, defence and special teams. Every snap, basically.

Mobile and powerful linemen pushed their weight around on both sides of the ball, while a handful of playmakers lit up the scoreboard. The foursome of Ryan Baker, Sean Werbowski, Julien Perri and Ben McMichael had been playing with and against each other in North Shore leagues for more than 10 years, and each player scored at least one touchdown in the provincial final. 

“It’s amazing how good all those guys are,” said Baker, the team’s quarterback who was named MVP of the final after throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for three more. “When we play teams sometimes they try to take away one of them and then the other two, the other three – they can’t stop them. Playing with those guys, especially because they’re some of my best friends as well, it’s amazing.”

The win rebooted a dynasty for the Dukes. Windsor won six provincial titles between 1995 and 2005, but hadn’t hoisted the trophy since then. During this season Schuman described to the North Shore News how the team succeeded despite its tiny roster.

“We have a very strong core group of players with exceptional character and who have shouldered the burden of enhanced roles, responsibilities and playing time,” he said. “The adversity, struggles, problems and difficulties that these players have managed to endure has made them a very resilient team. We are not the biggest squad but we make up for that with lots of athleticism, speed, and pound-for-pound toughness. Every one contributes in a meaningful way; we have no passengers along for the ride.”  

2. The man chasing the yellow gate

North Vancouver’s Gary Robbins became an instant sensation in early April when he just missed becoming a finisher at the ridiculously hard Barkley Marathons, known by many as the toughest foot race in the world.

Images of the highly decorated ultra-marathoner lying motionless beside a yellow gate – the event’s finish line – went viral, along with the story that he came in just six seconds late in a 100-plus mile race with a strict 60-hour cut-off limit.

That wasn’t the whole story though. Robbins also took a wrong turn in the final two miles of the five-lap course in Frozen Head State Park in eastern Tennessee. That mistake caused him to come in on the wrong trail – barely surviving a swim across a river to get there – meaning regardless of the time he clocked, he would have been deemed a non-finisher because he did not complete the correct route.

Robbins
Gary Robbins (right) shares a moment with eccentric race organizer Gary Cantrell following the 2017 Barkley Marathons. photo Michael Doyle/Canadian Running Magazine

This was a huge deal because only 15 people – including John Kelly this year, who teamed up with Robbins for the first four laps – have ever finished the Barkley since it was first held in 1984. Robbins didn’t complete the race according to the Barkley’s devilishly tough rules, but his agonizing finish may well have made him the most famous participant in the event’s history.

“It’s certainly a flood of emotions … to have come that close to things and to still have been so far away,” Robbins told the North Shore News after returning home from Tennessee. “Incredibly difficult to process and just juxtapose the feeling of pride and accomplishment with the knowledge of absolute failure at the last moment in time on the course.”

Robbins described what it was like to swim a swollen river in a state of delirium after racing for 60 hours straight.

“It was sketchy,” he said. “When I jumped in to swim I started getting washed downstream right away. I recognized that I wasn’t moving across the stream and I had kind of a tree that was protruding on the other side a ways down from me and that was going to be my only shot at getting through. I managed to put in enough of a kick to grab that tree and pull myself out of the river. From an experienced backcountry enthusiast perspective, that is the worst possible thing you could think about doing and I would never do that on a clear state of mind. And I would never do that again even on a deprived state of mind.”

Robbins has vowed to return in 2018 – his third time attempting the Barkley – and said he will keep going back until he finishes. If all goes well, next year’s Year in Review column will have a section on Robbins becoming the 16th ever finisher at the Barkley Marathons. Until then, he’ll still be known as the man who missed it by six seconds, as well as Canada’s favourite ultra-runner.

3. Seyhawks reach new heights

The 2017 season was the year it finally all came together for the Seycove Seyhawks girls basketball program, which built itself up from obscurity to awesomeness on the backs of one powerful pack of players.

The story begins with a group of elementary-aged girls in the Seymour/Deep Cove area who fell in love with the game and benefited from great local resources such as the Seymour Basketball League, a branch of Steve Nash Youth Basketball that is run by a number of dedicated community volunteers. The crew made it all the way to the provincial AA final in 2016 but fell just short of their ultimate goal, setting the stage for a redemption tour in 2017.

The long road ended in early March with a 69-54 win over the Vernon Panthers in the senior girls AA provincial final at Langley Events Centre to give the Seyhawks their first ever B.C. title in team history.

Seycove
Sage Stobbart soars to the hoop for the Seycove Seyhawks senior girls team. Stobbart was named tournament MVP and top defensive player as the Seyhawks won the provincial AA championship. photo Paul McGrath, North Shore News

“They were so focused, they were so dialed in to what they wanted to achieve,” said head coach Darcy Grant. “Once we got to tipoff we took a lead and never relinquished it.”

The team was pushed by a large group of Grade 12 players, led by athletic centre Sage Stobbart – now playing NCAA Div. 1 ball at UC Davis – who took over the final with 26 points and 14 rebounds on her way to earning tournament MVP and top defensive player honours.

Point guard Kayla Krug also starred for Seycove, earning first-team all-star status, while fellow Grade 12s Lindsey Bott, Stephanie Laube, Ashley Bradshaw and Naomi Bradshaw all stepped up to help the Seyhawks soar.

“Losing a year ago, it left us with a little unfinished business,” said Grant. “I think the girls knew that, the girls were aware of that the entire time and they really had one goal left in their high school basketball careers.”

4. Record-setting run

The plan was so audacious, so outrageous ... but could they pull it off?

A few weeks before the B.C. High School Track and Field Championships, Grade 12 running rivals – also very good friends and future roommates – Charlie Dannatt of Handsworth and Tyler Dozzi of Oak Bay agreed that they were going to tackle a monster. The meet record for the senior boys 3,000-metre race was set way back in 1975 by Burnaby South’s John Martens, with a blistering time of 8:21.27. The boys wanted to team up and beat it.

“We knew what it was and we knew how difficult it was going to be to get,” Dannatt told the North Shore News.

At the gun Dozzi quickly raced to the front of the pack with Dannatt close behind. They stayed that way for the next seven minutes or so, ripping off fast lap after fast lap. As they entered the final lap it was clear that they both had a shot at breaking the record. But who would win?

With 200 metres left Dannatt finally made his move, pulling in front of Dozzi on the final curve.

Charlie Dannatt
Handsworth’s Charlie Dannatt hits his stride at the high school provincials. Dannatt broke a 42-year-old record in the 3,000-m race. photo Wilson Wong/UBC Thunderbirds

“I was just thinking to myself ‘just push it all out, give it everything you’ve got,’” said Dannatt. His kick was strong, but not strong enough to leave Dozzi behind. The Oak Bay runner began to reel the Handsworth racer back in down the final stretch, and Dannatt could hear footsteps.

Then came the look over the shoulder at his opponent, the lean, the line, and then a look at the clock: 8:15.93.

Dannatt had beaten the 42-year-old record by more than six seconds. He’d beaten his good friend by 0.3 seconds.

“We were just blown away,” said Dannatt, who lowered his own personal best by 16 seconds. “We couldn’t believe it ourselves that we’d broken it, that we’d gone so far under. It was amazing.”

The win and record topped off a dream weekend for Dannatt, who also claimed gold in the 1,500-m race and was named the Male Athlete of the Meet. Both Dannatt and Dozzi are now studying at UBC where they’ll compete in track and field for the Thunderbirds.

5. Twins turn triple play

The North Shore Twins organization hit it out of the park at every opportunity this season, becoming the first ever B.C. Premier Baseball League club to win provincial gold at the bantam, junior and senior levels.

The senior Twins were dominant, claiming the regular season title with a 34-10 record before advancing to the BCPBL final where they knocked off the Parksville Royals 4-3. The junior Twins also turned two, winning the league title with a 32-8 record before running the table in the BCJPBL playoffs. The Junior Twins finished off their run with 7-5 win over the UBC Junior Thunder in the championship final. At the bantam level the Twins claimed the Baseball BC 15U AAA title with an 8-1 win over the Victoria Eagles.

Twins
Jack DeCooman fires a pitch for the North Shore Twins. DeCooman was the ace of the staff as the Twins won the BCPBL title. photo Paul McGrath, North Shore News

“It feels like a bit of a dream, to be honest, to have three teams win the provincial championship in one year,” said bantam and junior team general manager Dave Speers. Other key members of the club include senior head coach Brooks McNiven, general manager Rick Elstone, junior head coach Josh Hundal and bantam head coach and director of baseball ops and player development John Haar.

“It’s a lot of hard work just for one team to do it, let alone three,” Speers told the North Shore News. “It still feels a little bit surreal, but it happened. As coaches and general managers who run the program, we’re not even sure if something like this could happen again. In theory it can, but it’s a pretty tall task for an organization in the Premier Baseball League to pull something off like this.”

Honourable mentions

■ Manny Osborne-Paradis wins bronze at alpine skiing world championships

■ Colton Sissons stars in Nashville’s run to the Stanley Cup finals

■ VanOpen tennis tournament returns

■ Alex Kerfoot jumps from Harvard to NHL

■ Argyle senior boys volleyball returns after more than 20 years, wins Lower Mainland title

Wildest moment

■ Capilano Blues men win one of the longest sets in volleyball history, 44-42 over VIU