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OAKVILLE BEAVER Saturday, March 14, 2009 · 14 Second gold Points controversy in wrestling semi Continued from page 13 The Oakville peewee A Hornets went undefeated in five games to win the championship at the London Devilette tournament earlier this season, their second tournament gold of the year. Sam Cussen scored the decisive goal in a 1-0 win over Stratford in the final. Other members of the team are Sarah McDonnell, Emma Guimaraes, Olivia Atkinson, Taylor McMahon, Sarah Kozma, Kate Barkley, Rosie Heffernan, Bridget O'Neil, Liana Giovino,Taylor McMahon, Dana O'Hanlon, Caroline Innes, Nicole Collier, Jamie Godber,Annie Gutgesell and Madison MacKinnon. George Hardy, Ed Guimaraes, Burt Barkley and Gary McLellan coach the team, with Trish O'Neil and Barb McMahon serving as trainers. Dolphins repeat as best small team in Ontario For the second year in a row, the Dolphins Swim Club of Oakville is the best small swimming team in the province. The Dolphins finished sixth overall at last weekend's Ontario Age Group Championships in Ottawa, earning the Best Small Team Award. The Dolphins 14-girl contingent led the way, collecting 11 gold medals, 11 silver and four bronze to finish third in women's team competition. Sinead Russell, 15, set a national record in the 100-metre backstroke en route to winning six gold medals and one silver. Russell also set five meet records. Eleven-year-old Olivia Sbaraglia added three gold medals, winning the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle events, and earned silver in the 100m backstroke. Meryn McCann, 10, won gold in the 100m backstroke, silver in the 50m and 400m freestyle and 200m backstroke, and bronze in the 100m and 200m freestyle. William Dixon, 11, struck gold in the 100m individual medley. Also winning medals for the Dolphins were 13-year-old Lauren Dixon (silver in 200m and 400m freestyle and 100m breaststroke, and bronze in the 200m breaststroke) and 16-year-old Christina Tanninen (bronze in the 50m freestyle). Tanninen qualified for this weekend's senior national championships in the 50m and 100m freestyle events, where she'll join teammates Colin and Sinead Russell, Meaghan McCann, Lauren Dixon and Marina Biasutto at the University of Toronto pool. Dolphins girls' relay teams won four medals at the age group provincials, claiming silver in the 4x50m freestyle, 4x100m medley and 4x100m freestyle and adding a bronze in the 4x50m medley. Sinead Russell, Stella Zhao, Isabelle Nat, Lauren Dixon, Biasutto and Tanninen were all on at least one of the medal-winning relay teams. Individual finalists and additional point scorers for the Dolphins were 13year-old Maggie Burns, 15-year-old Meaghan McCann, 15-year-old Biasutto and 12-year-old Conchobhair Russell. Jacqueline Baillie, Amy Schubert, Meaghan McCann and Courtney Gregorian helped the Dolphins relay teams reach their final positions. won a national cadet title in the 12 months since his first OFSAA experience. So when he walked on to the mat for the bronze medal match, he was going against an opponent he was facing for the third time. "I felt pretty confident," Falconi said. Though Tremblay scored the first point, Falconi would bring the match to an end before the end of the first round by pinning his opponent. Falconi breezed through his first four matches without surrendering a single point and none of them went the distance. In the semifinals, Falconi ran into defending champion Steven Takahashi of London's Catholic Central. Takahashi won a close opening round 2-0. In the second round, Falconi had a 1-0 lead with 30 seconds remaining. Takahashi tried to push Falconi out of bounds but the Holy Trinity wrestler threw his opponent. One referee signaled for a point but then gathered with the other two officials. The elder Falconi thought they were trying to decide whether it was a discussion to award one point or three. Instead, Takahashi was awarded three points and took the round to advance to the final. Though the decision was protested, there was not any clear evidence on video to overturn the decision. Though Falconi felt he "got cheated out of points," he shook it off, rebounding to win the bronze. "I'm pretty happy," he said. "It's really hard to get an OFSAA medal so I'm pretty proud of myself." Falconi hopes to add to his medal collection in three weeks time when he heads to Fredericton, N.B. for the national cadet championships. Raiders regrouped before overtime Continued from page 13 OAK finishes second at swimming provincials Oakville Aquatic Club (OAK) finished a close second to the Etobicoke Swim Club at the recent provincial swimming championships in Nepean. OAK actually led the inter-club race for much of the competition before being surpassed by Etobicoke at the end. Etobicoke finished the meet with 4,433 points, 153 more than OAK. The Newmarket Stingrays were a distant third, 1,881 points behind OAK. "We didn't really expect to be in the race for first overall throughout the entire weekend, but the swimmers picked it up and kept us in the game right through to the final session," said OAK head coach Alex Wallingford. "The success was, top to bottom, a team effort." OAK's 58-swimmer contingent was led by Mitchell Gour (seven gold medals), Marni Oldershaw (four gold, one silver) and Tera Van Beilen (four silver, three bronze). Club members broke two provincial records at the meet, both coming in the relay. The girls' 13-14 4x50-metre medley team of Annie Harrison, Vera Johansson, Sharalynn Missiuna and Oldershaw posted a time of 1:58.55, breaking the previous Ontario record of 1:59.84 and missing out on the national record by .18 seconds. Harrison and Missiuna joined Julie Calvert and Van Beilen in the girls' 15-18 4x50m medley, finishing in 1:56.69 - five-hundredths of a second short of a national record. The previous provincial mark was 1:57.44. "We have a number of top-ranked swimmers who go into the meet expecting to be on the podium, and they raced very effectively," said Wallingford. "It was also the kids who were moving up in their rankings and placing in the top eight to score (points) that held us in all weekend." Gour won the Iron Swimmer Award for his age group (12year-old boys). Other individual gold-medal winners for OAK were Nicole Bullock, Mack Darragh and Calvert. Erin Assman, Kent Kikot, Miguel Lozano, Reid Scarrow and Harrison had at least one silver, while Jay Lansiquot, Holly Olsen, Dylan Kent, Olivia Sinclair and Johansson won at least one bronze. maybe it wasn't meant to be. The shots they were hitting were low-percentage threes." Westminster tied the game with 10 seconds to go in regulation. Aquinas' Charlie Drouin, who led all scorers in the final with 20 points, had a chance to win the game at the end of the fourth but his shot hit the front of the rim. Having been mere seconds away from a provincial AA title, the Raiders had to quickly regroup before the overtime period. "I told the guys between regulation and overtime to just enjoy it," said Maga. "The atmosphere was unbelievable and it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be in an OFSAA final in overtime with the crowd going nuts. When you lose a lead like that, you might be reeling, but our guys came back due to the great senior leadership we have. We have Ryan, Kyle, Evan (St. Hilliare) in their last year, and they're very even-keeled." St. Hilliare hit two three-pointers in overtime to put the Raiders up again. But back came Westminster once again, tying the game on a three with seven seconds to go in overtime. That set up the moment that Aquinas players and coaches will remember forever. "I'll never forget it, and I'll never forget any of (the players) because they were a part of it," Maga said. "These kids are a great group of kids and that's what made it so much fun."