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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, May 20, 2016 | 22 Hinchcliffe's enjoys his first podium finish of 2016 James Hinchcliffe returned to the podium for the first time in more than a year Saturday at the track where a life-threatening crash ended his season last May. The Oakville IndyCar driver turned in his best result of the season, finishing third at the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis. "To start on the second row was great and stay up there all day long, to have good pace at the end of the race, that's huge," Hinchcliffe said. "That shows great progress on the team side and the manufacturer's side." Simon Pagenaud won the race. "I don't think we had enough to do anything with Simon, but we could have at least kept up with him," said Hinchcliffe. Saturday's race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, racing on a road course on the infield as well as portions of the oval used for the Indianapolis 500. It was during practice prior to last year's Indy 500 that Hinchcliffe's car slammed into the wall at more than 220 mph and a piece of the car's suspension pierced his thigh. He missed the remainder of the season before making his return this season. After a couple of difficult races to start the season, Hinchcliffe has now posted three consecutive top-10 finishes. "We had a great race at Long Beach, great race at Barber and better race here. We missed all of first practice, but still managed assessed to Graham Rahal. Hinchcliffe was running third when he and the rest of the field pitted under a caution. A quick stop allowed him to pick up two spots coming out of the pits, getting ahead of race leader Pagenaud. However, he remained third behind a pair of cars that had already made their stops earlier. He lost those positions on the restart, but later managed to get by Charlie Kimball and Connor Daly to earn a spot on the podium for the first time since his win in New Orleans in April 2015. "That second stop was just (a) killer. Unfortunately, (we) just couldn't quite stay in front of Simon," Hinchcliffe said. "I had a great battle with Charlie, back and forth, side-by-side through a few corners. It was nice to not have to save fuel, just getting to go and drive a race hard and push this thing every lap." Hinchcliffe donated a portion of his winning's from Saturday's race to the Canadian Red Cross to support those affected by the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alta. "With what was happening up there, it was tough to watch. (Team owner) Rick Peterson's business is based in that part of the country and (sponsor) Petro Canada has a lot of people on the ground in Fort Mac. It's terrible what happened to that place. Hopefully, the little bit we're contributing, it's obviously going to a good cause, and hopefully it can help out." Sagl third-team All-American for a third straight season California University of Pennsylvania senior pitcher Alex Sagl has been named a National Fastpitch Coaches Association third-team All-American. The Oakville Trafalgar high school grad becomes the first player since the late 1990s to receive the honour at least three times in a career. Sagl earned the laurels for the third-straight year. She led the team with 16 victories and ranked ninth in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) with a 1.74 ERA. She finished second in the league with 153 strikeouts and paced the Alex Sagl conference with 8.07 strikeouts per game. Sagl totaled 132 2/3 innings pitched this season behind 15 complete games, including six shutouts, and limited opponents to a .199 batting average, which ranked fifth in the PSAC. Sagl winds up her career as one of the most decorated players in program history and ranks behind only Danielle Penner -- the NFCA National Player of the Year in 1998 -- in virtually every pitching category. A five-foot-six senior, Sagl ranks sixth in PSAC history and is seventh among active players in NCAA Division II with 809 career strikeouts. Sagl helped the Vulcans reach the PSAC championships in each of her four years, highlighted by two league titles in 2014-15. Sagl was named the most outstanding player of the 2015 PSAC Tournament after tallying a 5-0 record with one save and a 0.38 ERA in 36 2/3 innings pitched. Oakville's James Hinchcliffe speaks to the media following his third-place finish in Indianapolis on the weekend. | photo by Dana Garrett to get the car out there and qualify in the second row and race our way to the podium." Though he had done testing at Indianapolis earlier this season, it was his first time racing at the track since the accident. Hinchcliffe said he's put the crash behind him. "Such a big part of it was just getting back into a race car. So 99 per cent of that for me was done back in September," the 29-year-old said. "But to come back here and get back on the track -- we tested here on the oval and we'll be back on the oval in 48 hours -- for me, it's over and done with. It's in the past and so far the present is working out pretty well." Hinchcliffe had, by far, his best qualifying of the season. Despite missing the first practice session with a mechanical problem, he qualified fourth but was bumped up to third when a penalty was 2016 SUMMER HOCKEY CAMPS 9 WEEKS | JULY-AUGUST REGISTER NOW! CANLAN ICE SPORTS OAKVILLE 905.845.6989 ICESPORTS.COM/OAKVILLE