The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

w w w .insideH A LT O N .com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, A pril 2 8 , 2 0 1 7 | 32 Kevin Nagel Sports Editor knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports "Connected to your Community" on Abbey Park graduate named OUA West Division rookie of the year, to U Sports all-rookie team By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff W hen Melissa Langegger attended her first volleyball camp, she wasn't looking to be come a star. She was just hoping to spend more time on the floor than on the bench, where she spent the majority of her first sea son of elementary school volleyball. Langegger was a newcomer to the sport and it often showed. "I definitely was not very good," she says. Until that time she had devoted m uch of her time to gymnastics, a sport that her in volvement in stretched back to a parent/tot program when she was 10 months old. She competed competitively with the Burlington Gymnastics Club, winning a gold medal in vault at provincials and qualifying for the Eastern Canadian championships. So when she signed up for the Halton Hur ricanes volleyball camp, she just wanted an opportunity to develop her skills. "I just wanted to improve," she said, "so that I could play a little more for m y elemen tary school team." By the end of the camp, Langegger was encouraged to come out to the Hurricanes' rep tryouts. She would end up making the club' s top team, which led to a very busy winter as she balanced both gymnastics and volleyball. The following year, when it came time to choose between the two, volleyball won out. "I fell in love with the sport," Langegger said. "I had always done very individual sports but it was nowhere near as fun as competing with a team for a comm on goal." Melissa Langegger was named the Ontario University Athletics West Division rookie of the year and earned a spot on the all-Canadian rookie team after helping the Western Mustangs reach the OUA final. | Photo courtesy Western University Six years after making that first rep team, Langegger is still making surprising leaps on the volleyball court. Her contributions helped a young Western Mustangs team come within a few points of winning the Ontario University Athletics championship, before going on to a sixth-place finish at na tionals. The kinesiology student finished third on the team in kills (1 .7 5 ) and digs (2 .0 1 ) per set while averaging 2.1 points per set. Her play earned her the OUA W est Division rookie-of-the-year award and a spot on the U Sports all-rookie team. "To be honest, I don't think anybody, in cluding Melissa, expected her to have the success she did," said Western coach Melissa Bartlett. "She wasn't even starting with her under-18 club team ." Langegger still brought plenty of biggame experience having helped the Abbey Park Eagles win back-to-back Ontario high school championships. But she was expect ed to play a support role as she began her university career with the Mustangs. "Early in September she was probably fourth or fifth (am ong the team's outside hit ters) , and then within three months she was consistently in the top tw o," Bartlett said. Langegger began her ascent by making the m ost of her time on the court during the pre-season with what Bartlett called "relent less competition" and an ability to recover quickly from errors. By mid-season she had become a fixture in the Western lineup. In the OUA semifinals, she recorded six kills and a season-high 16 digs in W estern' s five-set victory over unde feated Toronto. Western then nearly pulled off another up set in the final, rallying from two sets down against McMaster before being edged 17-15 in the deciding fifth set. "I think taking down U of T and the level of game we played, it gave us confidence," Langegger said. "We were in a couple of situ ations where we were down and it gave us mental toughness." Western went on to finish sixth at the national championships, but with just one graduating starter there is plenty of promise for the future. Bartlett sees similar promise for the talented rookie. "We knew she was a great athlete," the W estern coach said. "She had the speed, the jum ping ability, the agility. To play her position you need to have really strong serve reception skills and she can still in crease her range offensively, using a range of tools." Info Night - 2017/2018 Season! Contact us by email: info@fieldhouseathletics.com Train with Fieldhouse with lessons and classes to get ready for summer! Phone: 905-639-3421 5230 Harvester Road fieldhouseathletics.ca e e High Performance Softball Teams High Performance Baseball Teams Independent Travel Baseball Teams