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Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports HALTON TRANSMISSION "Connected to your Community" 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com 47 | Thursday September 14, 2017 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insidehalton.com World Universiade gold inspires Keire championships and being named an All-American for the third time. Oakville Beaver staff Keire won the 200m freestyle at the conference As Jacqueline Keire watched from the pool deck, it championships in each of her four years at Cincinwas too close to call. nati and qualified for the NCAA championships 12 She and her teammates alternated their attention times. from the pool where they cheered on Alexia Zevnik, "It's weird thinking back in my freshman year, I to the video screen, where they could get a better wouldn't have even have thought of going to NCs, or sense of where the Canadian anchor stood in relation making this (national) team, but I just kept pushing to the other teams vying for the World Universiade my dream forward. I had multiple goals, and after I gold medal. got one goal I just kept going and kept dreaming." It was an unusual position for Keire. For the previThat drive helped her become a leader on the ous four years at the University of Cincinnati she had Bearcats, not only with the records and program anchored the Bearcat relays. Now she had the opporfirsts she established, but with her belief of what she tunity to experience the stretch run of a relay with could accomplish. her head above the water. "It was surreal to believe I could have such an im"It was fun to watch it all go down," she said. "It pact," Keire said. "I really believed in what they were was a cool experience to be able to cheer on your doing and the culture they created. It worked for me. teammates." I'm really more of an example of buying into what Keire had already done her part. Canada was third the coaches are selling. It works." when she dove into the water for the second leg of Keire is not done inspiring her teammates, though. the women's 4x100-metre freestyle relay in Taiwan. She's returning to Cincinnati this year to finish her The 22-year-old turned in an outstanding swim, findegree and will train with the team. But instead of ishing in 54.25 seconds. preparing for conference championships, she'll be That would turn out to be the third fastest leg of training for pro series events and the Canadian swim the race, behind only Zevnik (54.10) and U.S. anchor trials in the spring. Veronica Burchill (54.19). And more importantly, it Keire earned two silver medals (100m and 200m put the Canadian team into the lead. freestyle) and a bronze (50m freestyle) at the CaZevnik battled the Russian swimmer stroke-fornadian championships in August and also contribstroke for gold. As they touched the wall, it was uted to two Oakville Aquatic Club relay victories still impossible to tell who had won until the times (women's 4x200m freestyle and mixed 4x100m flashed on the scoreboard. Canada had finished in medley). three minutes, 39.21 seconds to edge Russia for the Keire carried that over into the World Universigold by 0.18 seconds. ade, where she helped Canada earn two other top"It was the result we knew we could get," Keire five relay finishes as well as a 14th place finish in the Burlington's Jacqueline Keire, right, gets a hug from Canadian teammate Katerine Savard after said of the team that had qualified seventh for the winning the women's 4x100-metre freestyle relay at the World Universiade in Taiwan. women's 100m freestyle. final. "When you race in a relay, you're not just racNow she hopes to continue to build on her first | photo by Mathieu Bélanger ing for yourself. I had confidence in our team and we national team assignment to represent her country closes the Bearcat book and starts a new one swimming for all had solid individual swims and brought it home." in the coming years. While Keire called it "the prettiest medal I've ever won," my country. Now I hope to get myself on more national "Taiwan was one of the coolest experiences I've had with it wasn't just the striking design or its brilliant gold shine, it teams." sports, meeting all the other athletes, and being a part of The Bearcat book had many more pages than Keire ever Team Canada, not just a swimming team," she said. "That was what the medal and the entire Universiade represented anticipated. She wrapped up her career by winning a third meet really kept the fire within me to continue. It was rethat really made it stand out. "I thought it was a perfect ending, having the chance straight American Athletic Conference swimmer-of-the-year ally inspiring. It's what I really needed to take that next leap to represent my school and my country," Keire said. "It award, finishing seventh in the 200m freestyle at the NCAA forward." By Herb Garbutt Assenza survives early attack to record first-round TKO on BTC 2 Valhalla card From studying his opponent on video, Adam Assenza expected Jesse Erickson to be aggressive. But building a scouting report and seeing it firsthand are often two different things. "There was no feeling out period," Assenza said of Saturday's fight with Erickson in Oakville. "He came at me hard. As I started to circle around, he was already across the cage. He pressed me and caught me with a right hand early." But Assenza survived the early ambush to win an entertaining lightweight fight that lived up to its billing as the co-main event on the BTC 2 Valhalla card. The first-round technical knockout win improved the Burlington fighter's pro record to 8-4. "We were in each other's face the whole fight," Assenza said. "It was a relentless pace, but that made it exciting for the fans." Three of Erickson's last four victories had come by way of submission and at one point he managed to hip toss Assenza and put a hold on his head, but he managed to squirm out of his grip. Back on their feet, the fighters traded punches but it was Assenza that was able to maintain the frantic pace. Erickson, now 9-7, began to clinch and Assenza continued to attack, catching his opponent with a hard elbow that sent him to the canvas. Assenza continued to attack on the ground until the fight was stopped around the three-minute mark. Assenza was impressed with the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex crowd. "At one point they started chanting `Maverick,' my nickname," he said. "That always gets me pumped up. You could feel the energy. Sometimes when you're in a firefight, you're concentrating on not getting hit and you land a punch, but you don't know if you've hurt him until you hear the crowd." The win marked the fourth time in five fights that Assenza scored a first-round TKO. In the night's co-main event, Mississauga's Scott Hudson (74) scored a unanimous decision over Atlanta, Georgia's Joe Elmore (12-10) in a lightweight match. Welland's Matt DiMarcantonio (10-7) stopped Jacob Bohn in the second round with a flying knee in their featherweight tilt. In other fights, Toronto's Anastasia Nikolakakos (2-0) defeated Arkansas' Francis Hernandez (22), Welland's Vladimir Kazbekov (3-2) beat Ottawa's P .J. Ste-Marie (0-2); Barrie's Patrick Connor (1-0) TKO'd Kentucky's Cody Kent and Toronto's Jason Hinds (1-0) won a unanimous decision over Joe Petahtegoose (2-2). -- Herb Garbutt