IO to Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports A swimmer's long road to OFSAA gold "Connected to your Community" (/) Q_ By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff In the pool, Lena von Buren is a sprinter, but she traveled a long way -- more than 22,000 kilometres -- to touch the wall first at the OFSAA swim m ing cham pionships. A year after winning a silver m edal at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic As sociation meet, the White O aks Secondary School student upgraded to gold by turning in a personal best bm e of 1:03.02 in the se nior girls' 100-metre freestyle last week in Windsor. A day earlier, von Buren repeated her silver-medal perfor m ance in the 50m freestyle, again establishing a personal best bm e of 27.52 seconds. Von Buren was com ing off an outstanding perform ance where she set two regional records at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference cham pionships (1:04.99 in the 100m and 27.95 in the 50m ). But she found another gear at OFSAA. "The com petition was pretty intense," she said. "That pushed me to im prove." Between the Halton championships in mid-February and OFSAA, von Buren took more than four seconds off her fOOm time. And while her times have come a long way in recent weeks, it's nothing compared to the journey that brought her to White Oaks. Von Buren grew up in Vermont where she sw am for a bronze-star club, a designation awarded to the top 200 U .S. clubs. After be ginning high school, her dad's engineering jo b took the fam ily to China. "It was definitely an adjustment, a differ ent language, a different culture," von Buren said, "bu t sports helped me get over that." After a year in China, the family settled in Oakville where von Buren continued her sw im m ing career with the W ildcats. In her two years at White Oaks, von Buren has fin ished no w orse than fourth in an individual race at OFSAA. But her win at OFSAA was her first gold and she did it in convincing fashion, winning by i.3 8 seconds. "She definitely has natural ability but she's also very strong and independent, works hard and strives for White Oaks Secondary School's Lena von Buren won a gold the best," said White Oaks coach Benjamin Watson. "I and silver medal at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic think her potential showed in the last two days." Associations swimming championships in Windsor. Also striking gold at the OFSAA m eet was Iro | photo submitted quois Ridge's Sebastian Krewdel. A silver m edallist in Grade 9, Krewdel w on the ju n io r boys' 50m backstroke in 30.06. Though he w ould have liked to have bro ken the 30-second barrier, Krewdel said the win was more important. "I felt so pum ped and excited when I got out o f the water," he said. "I was so happy to have accom plished the goal I set." N ext year Krewdel will m ove up to the senior ranks, and he's not ruling out adding another medal. "I know I'll be in the younger end o f the age group, but with what I accom plished this year, I'm going in strong and ready to take that on." Oakville Trafalgar's relay teams earned a pair o f silver m edals, finishing second in both the senior boys' 4x50m freestyle and m edley relays. Albert Nguyen, Paul Linden, Ahm ed Elmarsafaw i and Aiden Tyrrell finished in a time of 2:00.16 to take the silver m edal in the m edley relay. M ark M ontague replaced Nguyen on the freestyle re lay where Oakville Trafalgar had a time o f 1:44.84 to edge Nicholson College by .16 for the silver. Appleby College's Bora Tlabar earned a silver in the ju n ior boys' 50m breaststroke with a time of 33.52 seconds. Tlabar then team ed up with Ju stin Schroeder, Matthew W ilk and Diego Figueroa to earn another silver m edal in the junior boys' 4x50m m edley relay. Loyola's Katie Ivancic took the bronze m edal in the senior girls' 200m freestyle with a time of 2:26.42 and Appleby College's Shne Joach im 's time o f 26.92 seconds earned her a bronze in the open girls' 50m freestyle. Blakelock's Jam es Vann and Holy Trinity's Leah Creelman ju st missed the podium by less than half a second. Vann was fourth in the junior boys' 100m freestyle and Creelman was also fourth in the senior girls' 100m IM. Other finalists from the OFSAA meet were: Elmarsafawi, Oakville Trafalgar, fifth, senior boys' 200m freestyle; Tyrrell, Oakville Trafalgar, fifth, senior boys' 50m freestyle; · Jacey Vi, Oakville Trafalgar, sixth, senior girls' 50m freestyle; · Ben Currier, Abbey Park, sixth, senior boys' 100m breaststroke; · Tlabar, Appleby College, seventh, junior boys' 50m freestyle; · Oakville Trafalgar, senior girls 4x50m freestyle relay, seventh (Diana Gauthier, Quincy de Vries, Emilia Landmark, Vi); ·Creelman, Holy Trinity, eighth, senior girls' 50m butterfly. O =r CD Mackenzie in NCAA tourney with Bucknell Oakville's Kimbal Mackenzie scored a team-high 18 points to lead Bucknell University to an 81-65 victory over Lehigh University in the Patriot League cham pionship game, securing the Bisons a place in the NCAA tournament. Bucknell, 26-8, will be the No. 13 seed in the East Region. The Bisons will play the No. 4 West Virginia Mountaineers in the opening round today (Thursday) at 2:45 p.m. at the Key Bank Cen tre in Buffalo. Bucknell, winless in two previ ous m eetings against Lehigh this season, led 35-34 at halftime and pulled away with an 18-3 run, including a pair of three-pointers by Mackenzie, to open the sec ond half. Mackenzie earned a sp ot on the Patriot League all-tournament team, averaging 12.7 points and 3.3 rebounds in three victories. He had 13 points, three re bounds, two assists and two steals in a 78-62 win over Army West Point in the Patriot League tournam ent opener. 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