Thirty-five years in the making.
P.E. teacher James Waddell was obviously having a proud teacher moment as he announced at a school assembly the first ever provincial championship banner for the school, brought home last week by the FSJSS Falcons Girls Snowboard Team.
Waddell praised the “outstanding performance” of the entire ski and board team, made up of 19 students who traveled to Whistler for the Provincial Championships, with four team members finishing in the top 10 for their sport overall.
“They made us very proud,” he said.
The girls snowboard team had tied in the standings last year, and only just missed out on a banner then.
This year, Waddell said “they went there to win.”
Sarah King, a frequent champion in her summer pursuit of motocross racing, showed her athleticism once again and led the girls snowboard team, taking second place in the province individually, Brooke Dunkley right behind her in third place overall.
Kaylee Walstrom, Shelby Legebokoff, and Larissa Kosmick were 13th, 14th, and 15th overall, respectively and Mara Martin was 22nd.
The Fort girl boarders also all placed in the top 20 for the terrain GS.
There were 46 female snowboarders competing.
The final results for the entire ski and board team were again outstanding, with Oscar Croucher placing second in the province among boy boarders and his fellow boy boarder Cale Skeen placing 45th out of the 71 boy boarders.
Gabriela Willick placed eighth among the girl skiers in the province, Kaitlan Goodwin placed 13th overall out of 72 girl skiers competing.
The boy skiers had five in the final standings, with Liam Willick placing 25th, Maxz Boschman 36th, Jayden Greenaway 38th, Janko Spodniak 42nd and Ayden Leon 50th out of the 83 boy skiers who were at provincials.
Waddell said the team, under the dedicated coaching of Sarah Grill, has worked hard to get where they are, starting their dry land training in November and working as a team.
“These banners are really, really hard to earn,” he said. While he said For St. James has been sending teams to provincial championships since 1979, they had yet to earn a banner of their own, having to admire them in other school’s gyms in the past.
“This time we are the best,” he said.