West Islanders win medals at Quebec Games

BY ETIENNE LABERGE

After all the pomp and circumstances from honouray presidents, ministers, managers and others, the real Quebec Games stars — the athletes — got down to business.

The Games, which kicked off with a huge opening ceremony last Friday night in l’Assomption, saw the 147 Lac St. Louis region athletes — competing in 13 of the 18 sports on tap at these games — attack the podium with ferocity starting Saturday afternoon.

Off to a great start

Hoping to erase the bitter memory of a 2-1 girls’ hockey loss to Quebec, gymnasts Olivia Hannan and Julie Scheuer got down to business of winning medals by taking home bronze medals in individual events Saturday afternoon. It’s Hannan’s first appearance at the Quebec Games. In diving, Brian Starick won two bronze medals, in the 3-metre and the 1-metre springboard competitions, while teammate Stephane Tobiasz took home the 1-metre springboard competition in a higher age category.

The morning after the opening ceremonies, the curling brooms invaded the Le Gardeur Arena and Lac St. Louis;’ curling team made up of Bernard Piche, Evan Brown, Johnathan Spring and Gregory Stanton, cleaned house, beating Montreal 8-5 before hammering Saguenay/Lac St. Jean 13-5 later in the day. Not content with that margin of victory, Lac St. Louis creamed l’Est du Quebec 13-2 Sunday afternoon. The team followed that up with wins over Richelieu-Yamaska (7-3 and Rive-Sud (7-5) but fell 6-5 in the gold medal game Tuesday morning .

In girls’ curling, the Lac St. Louis team followed in their male counterparts’ footsteps, hammering Saguenay/Lac St. Jean 10-4 and pummelling Montreal 11-3. They fell 8-3 to Estrie on Sunday, though, and they sit at 2-1 going into this week’s matches. At the same time, the Lac St. Louis girls’ hockey team suffered second loss of the Games, falling to Rive-Sud this time around to drop their record to 0-2. After losing to Quebec Saturday, the LSL squad defeated the same team 3-0 Monday, on goals from Alexia Ramia, Madison Gallagher and Michelle Sides, but fell to Chaudiere-Appalaches 3-2 and then lost the bronze game on Tuesday.