Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports C L I M B I N G T H E W A L HALTON TRANSMISSION "Connected to your Community" 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com 33 | Thursday, February 19, 2015 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com L S Oakville speed skater wins his first individual World Cup medal by Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver Staff Oakville resident Riley Galloway makes her way up a wall during last weekend's Climbing Escalade Canada youth bouldering national championships at Climber's Rock Indoor Climbing Gym in Burlington. Galloway went on to finish 14th in the Youth C Girls division. Justine McCarney was the top local performer at the meet, placing sixth in Youth A Girls. Lia Wiecowski (Junior Girls) and Grace Wieninger (Youth C Girls) added 10th-place efforts, while Evan Figueroa (Youth B Boys) was 14th, Rahul Sapra (Youth A Boys) placed 15th and Neelanjay Anthwal (Youth B Boys) came 22nd. | photo by Eric Riehl -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog Swimmers combine for 21 golds at GHAC Oakville athletes combined to win 21 events at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference high school swimming championships, held Thursday at McMaster University in Hamilton. Most of those swimmers, and many others, earned a trip to the OFSAA provincials March 3-4 in Etobicoke by meeting qualifying standard times at the GHAC competition. Individual event winners included St. Thomas Aquinas's Panos Papangelakiws (open men's 200-metre freestyle), Jess Oswald (women's 15-over 50m butterfly and 100m individual medley) and Omar Lozano (men's 15-over 50m butterfly and 100m backstroke); Garth Webb's Claire Sutherland (open women's 50m free); Iroquois Ridge's Bennett Ho (open men's 50m free); Oakville Trafalgar's Scott Love (men's 15-over 200m free), Albert Nguyen (mens' 13-14 50m butterfly) and Alex Hayman (men's 15-over 100m breaststroke); T.A. Blakelock's William Dixon (open men's 100m butterfly and 100m free), Madeline Jeffrey (women's 15-over Oakville Trafalgar relay swimmers (left to right) Hannah Wasslen, Remylee Agbuya, Stephanie Trisic and Niki Geladi are pictured between events at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference championships last week in Hamilton. | photo by Graham Paine -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog Patrick Duffy's career-best finish didn't last long. A day after finishing fourth in the 1,500 metres at a short-track speed skating World Cup in Erzurum, Turkey, the Oakville native earned his first individual World Cup medal Sunday by winning a bronze medal in the 1,000m. His time of 1:25.511 ranked behind only winner Sin Da Woon of South Korea (1:25.311) and Russia's Victor An (1:25.428). Patrick Duffy "In today's final, I was aiming to put together everything that I had learned over the last few races and over the World Cup season," Duffy said. "The planned strategy went out the window right at the start, when I found myself fourth, but I stayed calm, and was able to move up to third. I tried catching up to An for second place, but he had the better legs today. It's still good to finally get that first podium." Duffy, 23, had already achieved a career-first just by reaching the final, marking the first time he had reached two A finals at the same World Cup. Duffy narrowly missed the podium in Saturday's 1,500m with a fourth-place finish, crossing the line just five one-hundredths of a second behind An. That matched Duff's career-best fourth, established at the season-opening World Cup in Salt Lake City in the 1,000m. Duffy had previously won two World Cup relay medals. The bronze, his first individual medal, comes just as the Canadian team begins its preparations for the World Championships, which will take place March 13-15 in Moscow. -- A longer version of this story and video footage of Duffy's bronze-winning skate can be viewed online at bit.ly/1Ld7PZQ Blades' regular-season home finale will raise money for burn victims All proceeds from ticket sales for the Oakville Blades' final home game of the Ontario Junior Hockey League regular season tomorrow (Friday) will go towards Camp Bucko, a special summer camp for children who have suffered serious burns. Prior to the contest, which is sponsored by Mississauga's Birnier CurrentSAFE and begins at 7:30 p.m. at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex, the Blades will recognize their graduating players and those who have committed to universities and colleges this season. Oakville enters the final weekend virtually assured of a third-place finish in its conference and an openinground playoff matchup with Orangeville. -- For more on the Blades, who are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games, visit bit.ly/1AFVxrg 100m breaststroke) and Marisa Telzer (open women's 100m free); Abbey Park's Osborn Zhang (open men's 100m breaststroke) and Sam Djurfeldt (men's 13-14 100m free); and White Oaks' Nicholas Pinney (men's 15-over 100m individual medley and 100m free). Oakville Trafalgar added relay wins in the men's 15-over 200m medley and 200m freestyle (Scott Love, Alex Hayman, Andrew Nguyen, Eugene Mech) as well as the men's 13-14 200m medley (Xander Don-Wauchope, Mohamed Elmarsafawi, Albert Nguyen, Haubi Geladi). -- A list of all local swimmers who advanced to OFSAA can be found online at bit.ly/1vG5fTe