The local athletes who will represent Team South East at the 2016 Estevan Saskatchewan Summer Games enjoyed a rousing introduction to their fans and peers at Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) on Sunday.
Most of the approximately 200 athletes who will play for Team South East in one of the 13 sports being held in Estevan during the July 24-30 Summer Games gathered together at the pep rally to receive information on what to expect during their stay at the ECS Athletes Village, obtain their Team South East opening and closing ceremony uniforms and build up the excitement for next week’s staging of the largest multi-sport event in the province.
Matt Weninger, coordinator of community development for Southeast Connection, said the pep rally allowed the Team South East mission staff to get everybody up to date on what will be happening when the Games begin, which will hopefully make for a seamless transition. He said there were also three high performance workshops held for the athletes at ECS before the pep rally to help the kids maximize their performance both at the Games and beyond.
“These athletes who come, they prepare for the Games so much and you don’t want them to just show up for the Games, leave and not have long-term learning and long-term resources that are available to them,” said Weninger, noting the workshops were in the disciplines of sport psychology, strength and conditioning and nutrition. “We had 70 athletes show up and I think for those 70 athletes I hope it creates a long-term part of their development path and hope they can take the resources and utilize them going forward.”
Weninger said the facilitators of these workshops had a belief going in that there would be a drop off in engagement from the athletes as the seminars went on, but each of the kids seemed to remain enthused throughout the day. That was evident at the closing pep rally as cheers from the large crowd of family and friends who packed the ECS cafeteria rained down upon each of the Team South East athletes as they stood before their fans and introduced themselves as a competitor at the Games.
Tyren Dorrance, 14, will be representing Alameda at the Summer Games as a member of the South East baseball team. He said there were open tryouts for the team in late June and early July with him and seven of his fellow Southeast A’s bantam AAA baseball teammates making the cut, which should translate into a strong advantage for the club heading into the tournament.
“We’ve got some pretty good ballplayers on our team heading in, so we’re probably expecting lots of wins and lots of runs,” added fellow South East and A’s teammate Justin VanAchte, 15, who will be representing Estevan at the Games.
Morgan Fichter, 16, an Estevan native who will be competing as a member of the South East athletics’ team at the Games, said a second-place finish in triple jump and a third-place showing in the 4x100-metre relay event at the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association provincial finals in early June as well as earlier success in regional and district meets gave her the chance to once again compete in those sports during the Summer Games. She said the South East team was getting together after the pep rally for a practice, but she’s also been doing a lot of work individually in the gym and on the track to get ready for next week.
“I hope to do well,” said Fichter. “There are some older girls than me who I have to compete against, but I hope to get my personal best.”
Weninger said the South East pep rally was the third Summer Games get-together of the day with teams from South West and Prairie Central also holding events. He said there are a lot of athletes in Saskatchewan getting pumped up for the Games right now and the South East is excited to be their host.
“I hope that when it’s all done the kids say they had a lot of fun,” said Weninger. “It’s all part of their development path to carry on with their sports, so just have fun.”
