Panther athletes pounce at COSSA

Holy Cross unable to block another leaping return from Ricky Gladu.

PECI Senior Volleyball Panthers ended their season in bronze position at the Central Ontario Secondary School championships Wednesday in Cobourg. Junior Panthers finished in fourth place in the COSSA games featuring the best of the AA teams from Bay of Quinte and Kawartha regions.

Brad Reid takes control of the ball after a sliding save by Jarret Mindle.

The Senior Panthers’ first win was a 15-9 tie-breaker game against Holy Cross (Peterborough) as the teams had split wins 25-23 and 25-20. PECI fell to last year’s champs, Cobourg East and to North Hastings High School. The Juniors were outplayed by Cobourg East and West and had one win against Quinte Secondary.

Sr. Panthers silver, Juniors bronze at Bay of Quinte

The PECI Seniors Boys' volleyball team won silver medals at the Bay of Quinte Championship last week and will compete at COSSA Wednesday. Coach Andrew Holmes is shown with Jarret Mindle, Erik Flake, Brad McRae, Sandy MacPherson, Kaleb Minnie, Devon Reid, Adam Miller and Ricky Gladu. (Note: countylive looking for photos of the junior team. Please send to news@countylive.ca)

High school sports are being played at award winning levels at Prince Edward Collegiate Institute teams advance and win at central Ontario levels.
PECI’s junior and senior volleyball teams will compete at the Central Ontario Secondary School (COSSA) games Wednesday. The senior boys won silver at the Bay of Quinte Championships in Bancroft last week.

Jr. Panthers Team. Donna Reid photo

The junior boys snagged third at Bay of Quinte to advance to COSSA.

PECI's senior Panther soccer players were golden at COSSA and will advance to OFSSA in June.

Last week the junior and senior boys soccer teams captured silver and gold at the COSSA level competition in Port Hope under the watchful eye of coach Dave Mather.
“Not in recent memory have we had two PECI teams in the boys’ soccer finals at COSSA,” says team manager Suzanne White. “It was a day to go down in history. Port Hope had also managed to get both their teams into the finals so PECI and Port Hope would battle each other twice for the trophy.”
White’s report of the day:
The juniors played their first game at 10 a.m. against Holy Cross, a team from Peterborough. The team was up 3-0 at the half with the first two goals both scored by Joseph MacDonald and assisted by Bryce VanGrootheest and the third goal scored by Seth VanValck and assisted by Alex Yuill. At the beginning of the second half Holy Cross came back and scored two unanswered goals making coach Dave Mather a bit anxious, but the Panthers put a fourth goal in the net with a lovely assist by Jared Found to Seth Van Vlack to take the Panthers to victory and into the COSSA finals.

The seniors’ first game came at noon and was played against Adam Scott. It was a tremendous game with the Panthers dominating throughout the entire game. In the first half Joel Porritt was on fire scoring three goals with two assists from Alex Creasy and one from Matt Harrington. In the second half Corey Prince lit up the field scoring two goals: one off his own free kick and one assisted once again by Alex Creasy. Adam Scott was unable to penetrate our strong defense and when they did keeper Brandon Peever was there to make sure the ball did not find our net. The seniors were also positioned to advance into the COSSA finals.

PECI's junior Panther soccer players were silver medalists at COSSA last week.

The junior final game took place at 2 p.m. PECI came out strong and scored two goals in the first half – one by Seth Van Vlack, giving him a hat trick for the day, assisted by Jared Found and the second scored by Dallas Hunter, assisted by Joseph MacDonald and Seth Van Vlack. Port Hope came out strong in the second half and scored two goals tying it up. The Panthers fought hard and battled it out on the muddy pitch but near the end of the second half Port Hope was awarded a penalty shot and managed to squeak by keeper Matt Gallo and win the game. The entire team played a great game and had a fabulous season and should be very proud of being 2nd best in Central Ontario. They represented themselves, the school and our community well and should be very proud of their accomplishments.

The day was not over and the seniors took to the field at 4 p.m. It had been a long day and at the end of the first half the seniors found themselves down 1-0. The team regrouped during half-time and coach Dave Mather reminded them that they just needed to be patient, play their game and that they would be successful. The boys took his words to heart as they made their way back onto the field and before the half ended Alex Creasy found the net with a goal assisted by Isaac Bass. The game ended in a tie and went into nail-biting, sudden-death overtime. If no goal was scored there would be two 10-minute halves followed by a shoot-out. The boys were determined not to go into a shoot-out. Light was beginning to fade as overtime began so the Panthers made short work of it with Alex Creasy once again beating the Port Hope keeper to put the ball in the net on an assist from Jake Clark and win the game. The Panthers were the COSSA champs and for the first time in the life of the current trophy our name went on it to join all the previous winners of the COSSA cup.

The win means the senior boys will advance to the Ontario Federation Secondary School Association (OFSSA) games in June, in Windsor for a four-day competition.
We are very excited. Although the long break in between will be a challenge for both players and coaches. The team is seeking any County sponsors who would like to help offset the cost of sending the players to OFSSA. If anyone is interested in helping out, contact Dave Mather at Hickory Tree.