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Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports L L O W I N G T H E B L O HALTON TRANSMISSION "Connected to your Community" 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com 45 | Thursday, November 27, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com F O C K S Iroquois Ridge Trailblazers running back Grant Vassos (with ball) looks for yardage against the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders in Tuesday's Halton high school senior boys' football Tier 2 final in Burlington. Ridge won the game in dramatic fashion, 8-7. See Page 47 for the story. | photo by Eric Riehl -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog Oakville resident receives award from Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Local resident, Toronto Star baseball columnist and Oakville A's rep coach Richard Griffin has been named the winner of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame's 2014 Jack Graney Award. The award is presented annually to a member of the media who has made significant contributions to baseball in Canada through his or her life's work. "Fully aware of the impressive list of winners of the Graney Award, I was humbled when (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame diRichard Griffin rector of operations) Scott Crawford called with the news," said Griffin. "By December 2016, I will have spent equal parts of my life as columnist with The Star and in the front office with the (Montreal) Expos. Just two jobs in 42 working years, both of them absorbing the wonderful life lessons of baseball. How lucky can one person be. "My thanks to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and to every GM, scout, manager, player, writer and broadcaster with whom I have ever worked. I have learned something important from them all." Born in 1954 in Kingston, Jamaica, Griffin fell in love with baseball while listening to World Series games on the radio as a youngster living on the north side of the island. His parents moved to Montreal in 1963, where Griffin graduated with honours from high school before attending Concordia University, where he also played junior varsity basketball. Griffin secured his first job in Major League Baseball with the Expos in 1973, while he was still a student at Concordia. Five years later, he became the team's director of publicity, and later volunteered in a public relations role for the MLB commissioner's office for 17 playoffs and World Series. After a player strike wiped out the final two months of the 1994 MLB season -- when the Expos owned the best record in baseball -- Griffin took his career in a different direction and was hired as the Star's baseball columnist the following February, a position he has held since. He also now provides analysis for TSN Radio and TV . "Richard has an immense passion for baseball, and you can feel that in his columns," Crawford said. "Over the past 20 years, he has become one of the most respected and knowledgeable baseball columnists in the business. He was also a tremendous contributor to the success of the Montreal Expos during the '80s and '90s." Griffin's 15-plus years of coaching Oakville A's teams include winning Central Ontario Baseball Association championships at the midget AAA (2011) and junior (2014) levels. He has twice been recognized for his commitment to coaching with an award from Sport Oakville. Loyola girls win OFSAA basketball bronze Making their school's first-ever appearance at the provincial girls' high school basketball championships, the Loyola Hawks weren't just satisfied to be there. The fourth-seeded Hawks won bronze at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations AAAA championships in Guelph, clinching their medal with a 51-39 victory over second-ranked St. John Paul II Saturday afternoon. Sam Pocrnic led the Hawks with 16 points, Jaelyne Kirkpatrick added 12 and Stephanie Findlay scored nine. Loyola coach Chris Pauletto said his team wasn't discouraged by a 62-40 loss to Pickering the previous evening in the semifinals that ended the Hawks' goldmedal aspirations. "For them, it was mission accomplished. They wanted a medal. When it didn't happen in the semifinal, the girls really went hard after the bronze," Pauletto said. The Hawks quickly jumped on what might have been a demoralized St. John Paul team in the bronze-medal game, taking a 16-6 lead after one quarter and increasing their advantage to 31-17 by halftime. St. John Paul was coming off a one-point loss to eventual OFSAA champion Edmund Campion in Friday's other semifinal, a game St. John Paul led by eight points going into the fourth quarter. "They might have felt a bit like they deserved better," Pauletto said. "But I'm not going to take anything away from our girls. The team we played was awesome, they were big. We just shot the ball really well." Shooting was Loyola's undoing in the semifinals against Pickering, a team that Pauletto felt matched up well with the Hawks' speed, athleticism and transition game. "They made everything, and we couldn't put the ball in the ocean," said the Loyola coach. "It was just one of those games. I wish we could play it again." Kiana Sampson-Steinauer (14 points) was Loyola's top scorer in the semis, as she was in the Hawks' 55-43 quarter-final victory over Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference rival St. Thomas More (when she scored 18). Pocrnic had 31 points in an opening-game 62-36 win over Father Michael Goetz, and tallied 17 in a 62-27 rout of Earl Haig in the second round. Pocrnic, a fifth-year student who returned to Loyola largely for a chance to get to OFSAA, and Kirkpatrick, bound for the University of Illinois on a basketball scholarship, will be sorely missed by the Hawks next year. "In my opinion, they are two of the best ever to play here. Jaelyne was good with the younger kids, especially our junior team, always helping them out, and she was a good team captain," Pauletto said. "Sam is just the strong, silent type, and players get a lot from that as well. She just goes out there and lets her playing do the talking. "They're quite different, but they were equally important." Other members of the Loyola squad, which went undefeated in both Halton and GHAC play this season, are Lauren Cross, Laura Ivaniukas, Sofia Croce, Rima McCullough, Ashley Diana, Hannah Temple, Darcy Large and Julia Knez. -- Jon Kuiperij