{"id":23239,"date":"2019-03-15T18:36:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23239"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:36:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:36:29","slug":"aurora-students-clean-up-with-athletic-awards-at-pickering-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-students-clean-up-with-athletic-awards-at-pickering-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora students clean up with Athletic Awards at Pickering College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace Robinson was off to what she describes as a \u201crough start\u201d\nwhen she first stepped on the volleyball court last year, but it has been\nnothing but smooth serves ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora teen, a Grade 11 student at Newmarket\u2019s Pickering\nCollege, was one of 10 Aurora students who took home top honours at the\nschool\u2019s recent Athletic Awards, which recognize significant achievements over\nthe winter sports program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI definitely wasn\u2019t a huge volleyball fan before I came here. I\nwas into basketball and I played outside of school, but last year I decided to\ntry out for the team because my friends asked me to,\u201d says Grace, who was\nawarded Most Improved Player in Senior Volleyball. \u201cIt was a rough start, but\nit was fun, I could play, and my teammates pushed me to be a better player.\nThis year, recognized as Most Improved Player, really said a lot because I had\nthe same coaches last year as well. Starting off not as a volleyball player and\nevolving into the player I am now really means something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining Grace among the honourees were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Murphy, Coach\u2019s Award, Senior Basketball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omar Ozturk, MVP, Junior Basketball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sameer Bardai, Most Improved Player, Senior Basketball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harper James, Captain\u2019s Award, Senior Volleyball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mia Smith, Coach\u2019s Award, U12 Volleyball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caylie Powell, Coach\u2019s Award, U14 Volleyball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coco Cao, Most Improved Player, U14 Volleyball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Rabito, Coach\u2019s Award, U12 Hockey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin Milligan, MVP, U14 Basketball<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a lot of good players on the basketball team, so it is\nan honour to get an award over some of them who are also very good,\u201d says Adam,\nadding that beating TMS by two points in the \u201clast couple of seconds\u201d of one\ngame was a season highlight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade 12 student Harper had been playing volleyball since Grade 9,\nbut only on a team outside of Pickering College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is an honour to be recognized, and it is just nice to get an\naward in my last year,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that is very prestigious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sameer also got in a lot of practice before joining the athletic\nranks at Pickering College as well, putting in time on the basketball court for\na team in Markham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never thought I would get recognized because the team was very\ngood this year, with a lot of good players,\u201d he says. \u201cThe season highlight for\nme was winning the Championship after two years of training hard and getting to\nknow my teammates. I started playing basketball when I was three, and it\u2019s just\nthat adrenaline rush \u2013 whenever you\u2019re in the game, you think, \u2018Oh my God, this\nis amazing!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although her game is volleyball, a similar passion is shared by\nMia, who has been playing for two years at the school and now serves as\nco-captain of her team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was the only Grade 4 (student) the first year I played\nvolleyball and it was hard to play because I was with all the bigger girls,\u201d\nshe recalls. \u201cNow, I am the Captain and it is nice to be recognized as a really\ngood player. We won our home games this season, we didn\u2019t win our away games,\nbut it was good to win at home because most everybody was new to the sport.\nThere were only two girls who really knew how to play. We worked together and\nhad all of our friends working together, so it was really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickering College is committed to\nbuilding competitive athletic programs where students are provided with\nincreasing levels of competition as they move through the Junior School to the\nSenior School in a way that supports their skills development, commitment and\ngood sportsmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmphasis is placed on developing\nfundamental movement skills, cooperation, and fair play,\u201d they say. \u201cTherefore,\nmany of our competitive athletic teams welcome players of all abilities from\nbeginners to those who have played before. Through coaching, guidance, and\ninstruction, students are encouraged to continue with the sport throughout\ntheir time at Pickering College in a fun, supportive and safe environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Grace Robinson was off to what she describes as a \u201crough start\u201d when she first stepped on the volleyball court last year, but it has been nothing but smooth serves ever since. The Aurora teen, a Grade 11 student at Newmarket\u2019s Pickering College, was one of 10 Aurora students who took home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-14-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-62P","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}