Travis Cross/Alberni Wrestling Update, Tyees Lacrosse report

Here's a couple updates from Alberni Wrestling, from Tom McEvay and Travis Cross.....

Some of you may have already received this from Travis …..

Port Alberni’s Olympian Travis Cross is in Europe on a 2 week training and competitive tour with the National Senior Men’s Wrestling team. He just finished a major international tournament in Sassari Italy and won the gold in his 84 kg weight class. He is now off to Macedonia for their next competition. He has sent the email below this morning. This tour and other events this summer are part of Travis’s preparation for the 2009 Worlds in Denmark in September. His preparation this summer will include the World Police and Fire Games in Vancouver in early August. Travis is a proud Port Alberni fireman.

Meanwhile another Alberni Wrestling alumni and current coach James Messenger is in Turkey where he is coaching Canada’s Women’s FILA Cadet team (16-17 year olds) at an international tournament in Izmir. The Canadian Women’s team did well finishing third behind Turkey and Bulgaria. Alison Sokalski of North Vancouver took a bronze in the women’s 60 kg class. Alison was part of the Alberni Wrestling tour to China last summer. James and the team get a couple of days to explore parts of Turkey before coming home on Wednesday.

All the best.

Tom

And from Travis....

Bonjuourno! I just finished our first of two tournaments this trip in Sassari, Italy. We stayed in a small town called Stintino which is on a very nice beach on the Island of Sardinia.

I had 14 guys in my weight and I took the Gold. My matches went as follows:

Match 1 vs. Senegal 6-0, 6-0

Match 2 vs. India 1-1, 4-0 pin

Match 3 vs. Greece 1-0, 2-0

Match 4 vs. Spain 3-0, 3-1 (gold medal match)

The rest of the Canadian team:

55kg John Pineda 3rd place

60kg Saeed Azerbaijani 1st place

66kg Haislan Garcia 1st place

74kg Matt Gentry 2nd place

130kg Arjen Bhullar dnp

Our team won the tournament title. I saw a couple Italians wearing Alberni Wrestling shirts.

We are back in Rome until tommorow when we fly to Skopje, Macedonia for our second tournament starting Saturday. Got to see an airshow on the beach in rome yesterday. The F-16 and Herrier were very impressive. It has been hot but is raining today. All the best to everyone back home.

Travis

LACROSSE: BANTAM TYEES DEFEAT COWICHAN

The Bantam Tyees defeated second place Cowichan Thunder in back to back games on Sunday at Fuller Lake Arena to pull within one point of division leading Victoria.

The Tyees took a while to get going against the Cowichan team who scored first on a power play during the morning game. Using speed and close checking the Tyees finally scored their first goal 12 minutes in and never looked back. They ended the first period up 4-2, then 5-2 after the second and 7-3 for the final score. Reed Garcia scored 4 goals in the winning cause. Corey Beecroft, Ryan Buse and Logan Savard added singles, and Beecroft and Buse also had assists.

In the afternoon game Alberni got on the board five minutes in and never looked back, raising the score to 4-1 at the end of the first period, 7-3 after two periods and in the end tripling Cowichan to finish at 9-3. Cowichan players were clearly frustrated by being on the losing side of the score and this was reflected in the number of penalty calls during the game. Savard led scoring for the Tyees with a hat trick. Beecroft had two and an assist. Singles were contributed by Nick Yewchyn, Beau Wilson, Connor Gagnon and Nathan Read. Also assisting were Jordan Lavertu, Gagnon and Buse (2).

This was a real team effort. As well as the depth in the scoring, the Tyees stepped up to match Cowichan’s physical game, refusing to be intimidated by their larger opponents. Hughie Watts was a physical presence on both defence and offence and Riley Kuxhaus was huge in goal in both games.

Port Alberni fans will have a chance to see how the team is coming together next weekend. The Tyees are at home at the Multiplex against Comox Wild 2 on Saturday at 9:30 and 12:30 and against Comox Wild 1 on Sunday at 11:00 and 2:00.

Hammer



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