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Times Advocate, 1996-12-18, Page 18This Week in Sports... . Lucan Irish in a slump - page 19 ilver Stick and ringette tournament scores - page 20 From white to black, karate students pass grading Making the grade. From back, left, Sensei Ron Bowers poses with black belts, Pat and Mar- lene Lane, David Robertson, front from left, Levi Lane and Chris DeHaan. The five karate stu- dents passed their black belt grading recently and will receive their belts during a ceremony held in London on Thursday night. By Chris Skalkos T -A Reporter CREDITON - Ron Bowers, Sensei for Bernardo Karate Academy has reached a pinnacle in his teaching career; so have five of his students. For the first time in in five years Bowers will see five of his students obtain their black belt status. Dave Robertson and Chris DeHaan from Credi- ton, Pat and Marlene Lane from Grand Bend and their son Levi have passed their black belt grading recently and will receive their belts during a ceremony held in London tomorrow (Thursday). The achievement will mark five years of dedication from all five stu- dents, as well as from Bowers who has been their instructor in the art of the open hand since they entered his dojo as white belts. "I'm really proud of them because I know what they went through," said Bowers. What they went through were hours of physical and mental testing that pushed them to their limits. Conducted by the academy's founder, Sensei Ber- nardo, and other third degree black belts, they were tested on endurance and technique on two separate days and before it was over all of them took turns sparring with Brent Beatty, the world heavyweight karate champion. Surprisingly, none considered the sparring to be the most difficult part of the test. For Pat it was the technical aspect, for Marlene it was the three-hour endurance test and young Levi agreed, adding the endurance testing was the longest three hours of his life. Robertson found it challenging to be tested on his technique "all alone with three black belts star- ing at you," and DeHaan said waiting for the day of the grading was almost unbearable. "The anticipation was the worst. Just hours be- fore, you're second guessing yourself because you u your be m y mas the bas kar know what to expect," said DeHaan. All of them said they would have been surprised at the intensity of the grading if sensei Bowers hadn't prepare them for it. "He was honest with us and told us how hard it would be and it was actually very hard," said Mar- lene who knew she may have trouble with the gruel- ling physical testing. "When I finally reached the point where I couldn't do another push-up I went down on my knees to finish them," added Pat who wouldn't give -up even when his body had reached it's limit. "They had to reach deep inside their soul to try to find that last bit of energy," said Bowers adding he remained con- fident in his students throughout the grad- ing. Bowers said it wasn't just physical strength they were testing for. Each stu- dent had to prepare a written essay ex- plaining what karate meant to them and state their short, mid and long-term goals. This is something Bowers asks his stu- dents to do when they reach their blue belts as well, because he feels it helps them focus on what's im- portant to them in their lives and helps them attain their goals. The next time the five blackbelts enter the dojo the students in the room will stop what they're do- ing and bow to show the respect they someday hope to earn themselves. However, it is by no means an end to their training, but only the beginning of a bigger journey that will take them through ten de- gree black belt levels if they chose to do so. "Getting your black belt just means you've mas- tered the basics of karate. It's really just the be- ginning,"said Bowers who refuses to take any cred- it for his student's accomplishments. "To go through what they went through you have to really want to learn. You can't teach anybody karate. All I did was teach them how to learn...now they're ready to learn a lot more." Getting black It just eans ou've tered ics of rate." Exeter Hawks beat two division teams "EXETER - The Exeter Hawks continue to dominate their division with a pair of wins over the week- end. Exeter pummelled Seaforth 7-2 on Sunday and defeated Mitchell 3- 1 on Friday night stretching their current winning streak to seven games. The Hawk's special teams played a vital role against Seaforth as Ex- eter scored two shorthanded goals compliments of Sean McCann who scored in the second period, and Chris McDonald who notched his second of the night, while Ben McCann pumped one in unassisted on a powerplay. The rest of Exeter's scoring came off the sticks of Jeff Glavin, Ryan Freiter and Chris Kennedy as the Hawks continue their winning ram- page in the Junior Development league. Exeter vs. Mitchell Friday night's home game was a closer contest as the Mitchell team entered the match hot off a come - Exeter ringette teams compete in Mitchell tournament MITCHELL - Three teams representing the Exeter and District Ringette Association participated in the Mitchell tournament over the weekend. Neither team placed first, however, one team was celebrating a small victory when it was all over. The Exeter Optimist Petite "C" team recorded their first win of the season after defeating a heavily favoured team from Waterloo 7-6 during their first game of the tournament. After trailing Waterloo by two goals Exeter came from behind to tie the game at six with only two minutes remaining. Head coach Michele Hodgert said Exeter passed the ring well and Holly Hern played an outstanding game in net to keep the game tied at one, but Exeter wouldn't settle for a tie. Hodgert called a time-out with only half a minute left to plan a way to win the game. According to Hodgert, it worked. "They did what I asked them to do and it was wonderful," she said. With the clock ticking down, Enid Drummond took the ring and maintained possession until she passed it out to centre -ice where Mi- randa Grenier was waiting. Grcnier sent a quick pass into the of- fensive zone where Jenna Revington picked up the ring and deked the goalie to score the winning goal with only 14 seconds left to play. "It sure wasn't a cake -walk," said Hodgert about the dramatic and unexpected result of the game. "It was a very memorable first win of the season." Still pumped from the win over Waterloo, the Exeter Petite "C" team almost clinched another win in the next round against Mitchell. A strong defensive and offensive effort in the second period allowed Exeter to come -back from a 5-1 deficit but they couldn't muster the equalizer as they dropped the game 6-5. "If we would have had a few more seconds we could have tied that game," said Hodgert adding they were pressing for another goal un- til they ran out of time. Exeter completed tournament play with a loss to Woolwich in the third game. In other tournament action the Exeter Tween "C" team coached by Jim Regier lost to Stratford 4-2, and to Tiverton 8-5 before beating host team Mitchell 9-6. The Exeter Tween "A" team, coached by Doug Miners, lost their first game to Mitchell 6-1, tied Hanover 3-3 and beat Stratford 4-3 in the third game. After the points were tallied Exeter was tied for second place but lost according to goals scored for and against. from -behind win over Lucan last Wednesday. Mitchell has been gaining ground in the Morenz divi- sion climbing from the basement to second place and their strong per- formance against Exeter proved they deserved to be there. But de- spite being out -shot by Mitchell 35- 24, Exeter won 3-1 thanks to Chris Kennedy who scored three goals for his first hat trick of the season. Kennedy opened the scoring in the first period and pumped two goals in within 60 seconds of each other with Chris McDonald as- sisting on the first goal and Jason McBride and Jeff Glavin assisting on his second. There was no scoring during the second frame and Kennedy finished off his hat trick in the third on a pretty play set up by Sean McCann and Nathan Burns. McCann won the face-off in the offensive zone and sent a pass to Burns who wheeled around behind the net and snapped out a crisp pass to Kennedy who broke into the slot and one -timed the puck past the be- wildered Mitchell goalie. Head coach Dave Revington was happy with his team's performance crediting a late game effort and some heads -up play from his spe- cial teams. "I thought we carried this game through the third period," said Rev- ington. "We've been killing pen- alties well and in games like this you need good penalty killing." Despite beating two inter- division teams over the wcekend Revington isn't selling any team short and maintains they are play- ing in the toughest division of the league. "This is the most balanced divi- sion in years. Even the bottom place team is playing .500 or bet- ter," he said. Although Exeter has a firm grasp on first place in their division with a 18-2-1 record, statistics don't hold a lot of weight with Revington who has been coaching for too long to get overconfident mid -way through the season. "We're in first place because we're winning the close games, but that can turn around easily," he said. Exeter will see action on Friday night when they host the Lucan Irish for their third encounter of the season. The series is currently split at one and Exeter hopes to take ad- vantage of the lagging Irish who are in a serious slump by extending their winning streak to eight games. Loc' win curly tourna STRATFORD - Four 1 !ors took first place at ing tournament hx£,,�. ford last Wedne Aylmer Powe, s Coleman, vice skip, WI `. Chapman, first, and Mars Dearing, second, beat tw teams from Kitchener and Woodstock to place first i the points standings durin the 32 team toumame Coleman said the to was proud to represent er at the tournament a were pleased atthe o come. V. "We all curled well th day, We knew we had, we wouldn't have ma • said Coleman. "It was quit an honor to win because •+ our age you don't win to MARY games." Stephen novice win Silver Stick The Stephen Township novice hockey team will advance to the International Silver Stick tournament held in Michigan By Chris Skalkos T -A Reporter PARKHILL - The Stephen Township Novice team will ad- vance to the International Silver Stick Tournament in Michigan after winning its sixth consecutive game at the regional competition in Park- hill on Monday night. Stephen swept the tournament de- feating host team Parkhill 11-0 on the opening day and went on to beat West Lorne 6-0 and Bothwell 10-0 in pool play. They met Both- well again in the semi-finals taking another win 7-2 and advanced to the "D" division finals to meet Al- vinston. The game was a close end-to-end battle with Stephen edging Alvins- ton 3-2 after J.T. Knee scored with 16 seconds left on the clock to give Stephen the championship. "That was the toughest novice game I've ever seen," said head coach Bev Thompson. "It was an exciting win in front of a good crowd." However, only one team is de- clared an overall tournament win- ner and Stephen had to square -off against the winner of the "C" divi- sion championship between Lucan and Ridgetown. Lucan Novice The Lucan Novice team played four close games to get to their Sil- ver Stick final beating Mt. Brydges 4-1, Port Stanley 3-2 and West Lorne in the third and semi-final game with scores of 3-2 and 5-1. Their game against Ridgetown was too close to decide a winner during regulation time as both teams played to a 4-4 tie; and when three sudden death overtime periods failed to yield a winner the game went into an empty net shoot-out with each team taking turns firing at the empty net from the blue line. "It wasn't an easy thing to do af- ter they just played for an hour and a half," said team spokesperson Ca- thy de Jong adding it was the team's second game of the day and the players were exhausted. Lucan ended up on the losing end of the shoot-out, however, de Jong said the team was not disappointed with the outcome. "It was a clean game with few penalties but somebody had to lose," she said adding they were winning the game 4-3 until Ridge - town tied it up with 13 seconds left. "The coaches were really proud of the kids, they handled the loss very well." If Lucan would have beat Ridge - town it would have set the stage for a Stephen Township .vs Lucan nov- ice showdown to decide an overall winner. The two centres have split a pair of games in exhibition action. De Jong said Lucan is the only team that has defeated Stephen so far this season and they were ready to do it again. Thompson said he expected to meet Lucan in the tournament and would have liked to settle the grudge match in Parkhill. "It would have been an inter- esting game. I guess the winner would get all the bragging rights," he said. International Silver Stick Winning the regional competition in Parkhill gives the Stephen Town- ship Novice team the right to ad- vance to the International Silver Stick "C" and under tournament held in St Claire, Michigan from Jan. 24 to 26. The prestigious event features the winning teams from regional tour- naments from across Ontario and A North Eastern portion of the United States. Thompson said other Stephen Township hockey teams have made it to the international competition before, but no team has ever brought back a championship title. "Winning it would do a lot for minor hockey in Stephen Town- ship," said Thompson adding other teams have scoffed at their winning 28-1-2 season record chalking their success up to luck. "I think it will earn our "D" size centre a lot of re- spect." Funding is a concern Earning a berth to the intet- national tourney is one thing. Get- ting there is another story and Thompson said he is unsure if the team can come up with the $500 entry fee plus the travel and ac- commodation expenses required to participate. Coaching staff and parents will meet at a later date to discuss fund- raising un -raising possibilities, but Thomps, doesn't know if they will be able{ generate the money by January. `We're concerned about that be- cause many of us feel this team could go all the way," he added.