After a successful athletics season at Humboldt Collegiate Institute, Mohawks athletics hosted their fourth annual athletics banquet at the high school on Jun. 14.
HCI Athletic Director, Kerri Archibald, says the athletic awards were started a few years ago in part to recognize the athletes like the school has recognized the academics and it has just taken off since.
鈥淓ach year it鈥檚 kind of grown and become more apart of the culture of our school so we鈥檙e pretty proud to showcase the talents that we have here at HCI.鈥�
HCI captured a number of individual and team provincial championships this year including a gold and a bronze in golf, a silver in girls soccer, and three gold, two silver, and a bronze in track and field for a total of four gold, three silver, and two bronze provincial medals.
鈥淚 mentioned all the teams and the individuals that got to a provincial level this year which was awesome for our school. I鈥檝e probably never seen that many teams or individuals go and win awards鈥� we鈥檝e just had a good provincial platform this year for our athletics,鈥� said Archibald, who noted that the provincial championships were great but they were celebrating all of the athletes for their hard work whether they won or not.
HCI also enjoyed a successful season at the district championships as they picked up three district championships in golf, one in badminton and 15 in track and field for a total of 19.
This year HCI handed out four athlete of the year awards, which were won by the same four athletes that won the awards last year.
Angela Baran took home a number of awards this year including the girls soccer award, girls cross country award, senior girls basketball award, as well as the senior girls athlete of the year award.
Baran says it was really special to be recognized for all of the hard work that she put into her athletics with the senior athlete of the year award but said she could not take all of the credit.
鈥淎 big thank you to all the teachers, coaches, community coaches because they鈥檙e the reason we鈥檙e where we are today.鈥�
Senior boy鈥檚 athlete of the year went to Jared Giddings, who also took home the senior football award. Giddings is in his final year of high school at HCI and said it was a great topper to his HCI athletics career.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a great feeling going out with this award because it makes me feel good about my accomplishments throughout my four years here and it鈥檚 nice to be recognized for all the stuff I鈥檝e done.鈥�
Jared was not the only Giddings to win an athlete of the year award as Jenna Giddings picked up the JV Female Athlete of the Year.
Winning the award for the second year in a row is a 鈥済reat feeling鈥� says Jenna who noted it was a great affirmation that her hard work is paying off.
鈥淚t just means I didn鈥檛 downgrade any I just kept improving and hopefully I just keep improving in every sport I do now.鈥�
Jenna was joined as JV Athlete of the Year by male winner Rylan Marianchuk, who said it was really nice to be recognized and was surprised to win it for the second straight year.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think being a grade 10 this year I鈥檇 win it again but I did and it was very surprising.鈥�
This year HCI saw over 200 athletes compete in nine sports and were coached by 15 teacher coaches, and 15 community volunteer coaches.
Archibald says those numbers go a long way towards showing the reputation of the HCI athletics program.
鈥淲e have a lot of grade nines who are eager to participate and I think it is just that culture that we have developed where kids want to participate.鈥�
This year Humboldt Public School Principal, Dave Hill, was the guest speaker and said that having coached a number of the HCI athletes during their younger years at HPS was a big contributing factor to his agreeing to being the speaker.
鈥淚鈥檝e always tried to follow the kids as they go on to high school and my kids have been in high school the last few years so a lot of the names I heard tonight were names that I hear around our kitchen table, too.鈥�
Hill spoke mostly about his own life鈥檚 involvement in sports and said that he hoped the kids would take away how it helped shape his life.
鈥淪ports somewhat defined who I am as a person and that鈥檚 what I wanted the kids to walk away with tonight. They鈥檝e had fine starts to their athletic career. Keep going, keep letting sports define you whether it鈥檚 participating, coaching, refing, enjoying, spectating, watching their own kids play one day, those are the thrills that we really get from it.鈥�
Archibald says the night was also about the great coaches that HCI has in their athletics program and wanted to thank them for this hard work and continued commitment as well.
鈥淥ne of the toughest jobs I have is making sure that we have coaches set up for each team鈥� right now we鈥檙e short a couple of basketball coaches and next year鈥檚 taken care of so it says a lot about our staff members and our community volunteers that they want to come back and continue to coach these programs.鈥�
