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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, May 10, 2013 | 30 Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports O U T S T A N D I N G "Connected to your Community" I N T H E I R F I E L D Oakville lacrosse players in NCAA tournament Sean Young scooped up three ground balls and caused a turnover in Syracuse's 13-9 win over Villanova as the Orange won its second straight Big East lacrosse title. Young, a sophomore defender, had 10 ground balls and six caused turnovers in 12 games for the Orange this season. Syracuse, 13-3 on the season, will enter the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed, looking to win its 12th NCAA title and its first since 2009. Syracuse opens the tournament Sunday against Bryant. Jon Newhouse helped the University of Albany Great Danes win the America East Conference championship. The junior defender gathered four ground balls and caused two turnovers in a 19-10 win over the University of Maryland Baltimore County in the conference title game. Newhouse led Albany in caused turnovers with 21 and was third on the team with 43 ground balls. Albany, 13-4, will be making its first appearance in the NCAA tournament since 2007. It faces thirdseeded Denver on Sunday. Other locals playing in the NCAA tournament are Brian Cole, Tyler Albrecht and Brennan Donville. Cole is a sophomore midfielder for the University of Maryland Terps, who are the No. 6 seed in the tournament after going 10-3 this season. Maryland will play the Cornell, which includes Donville, a freshman goalie for the Big Red. They square off in an opening-round match Sunday. Albrecht is a freshman midfielder for the Loyola Greyhounds. Loyola went 11-4 this season and will face Duke in the opening round. Locals also in Division III tourney Elliott Cowburn was named co-MVP of the championship game as the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers won their second straight Liberty League lacrosse title with a 10-9 overtime victory over Clarkson. The Holy Trinity high school grad anchored the RIT defence in the win, collecting six ground balls and causing three turnovers. The senior defender leads the Tigers in turnovers created with 17 and is second on the team in ground balls with 47. RIT rallied from a 9-6 fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime. Brad Gillies, a sophomore midfielder, had two assists in the championship game. RIT, which also includes freshman midfielder Braden Wallace, received one a first-round bye in the NCAA Division III tournament. The Tigers will play the winner of Cabrini (14-3) and Springfield (10-7) on Saturday. White named to all-conference team Mark White was named to the all-Little East Conference lacrosse team. A senior midfielder at the University of Southern Maine, White finished second on the Huskies in goals with 28 in 16 games. The St. Thomas Aquinas high school grad also had 17 assists and 21 ground balls and ranked seventh in the conference in shots per game (6.69). The Huskies were 5-11 this season. An $850,000 project to upgrade and renew the athletic fields at T.A. Blakelock High School is well underway. Among those excited about it are (front row, left to right) Blakelock Spirit of Support Committee chair Dan Ferrone, Holcim (Canada) Inc. vice president Bill Galloway, Dufferin Construction Co. general manager of operations Peter Gamble, Blakelock principal Dean Barnes and (back row, left to right) Blakelock athletes Meredith Johnson, Nicole Spring, Alex Thorn and Jared Chen. Also pictured are dignitaries and politicians who attended Wednesday's media event at the school. | photo by Graham Paine -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog Tigers get a little help from their friends by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor The T.A. Blakelock Tigers will soon be able to prowl familiar territory once again. An $850,000 project to upgrade and renew the high school's athletic fields is well underway. The grass surface on the main field has been improved, bleachers have been replaced and the track around the field has been rebuilt. The secondary practice field has been enlarged and leveled, with a new fence constructed around it. Future upgrades include a new scoreboard at the main field and sodding of the practice field. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the school year. That is music to the ears of Blakelock principal Dean Barnes, whose outdoor teams haven't been able to practise or play games on the school's main field for more than a year. "We've been on the waiting list to have some of these things. Because we have such a strong community, we've always focused on what's inside the building and what we offer students," Barnes said Wednesday at a media event celebrating the project. "That's what's kept us going over the years, the strong community spirit and the patience (believing) we would eventually see some improvement." Blakelock, the oldest high school in town, would have had to wait a while longer for the upgrades had it not been for a couple of community partners. The Spirit of Support (SOS) Committee, a dedicated group of volunteers who aim to enhance Blakelock's facilities, teamed with the Halton District School Board, the Halton Learning Foundation and the Town of Oakville to spearhead the project. And Dufferin Construction Co., recently recognized as Oakville's community builder of the year at the annual Oakville Awards for Business Excellence, has donated labour and the use of equipment, particularly to the renovation of the practice field. "The school board takes a long, long time to get around to funding things like this. That's partly because all our dollars come from the Province, and the Province doesn't provide us the funding we really need to do this," said Don Vrooman, HDSB Trustee for Oakville Wards 1 & 2. "We wouldn't be looking at these changes without the involvement of the broader community." The HDSB contributed $600,000 towards the project, with the SOS Committee providing the other $250,000. "We beg, borrow and steal. It's fundraising, and it's very difficult," said Canadian Football Hall of Fame lineman Dan Ferrone, a Blakelock graduate who is the chair of the SOS Committee. "(The HDSB) has a lot of schools to take care of... We were one of four schools who were going to get a new field, so what we (helped do) was jump the line. Now we get stands and a clock." see Artificial on p.31