Rustlers Celebrate Season Successes

For the first time in 3 years, the Rustlers were able to gather together to celebrate the successes of the season.  The 2021 – 2022 season was one to celebrate as the Rustlers found success in almost every sport.

The season started in the fall when both the men's and women's soccer programs earned rankings at the national level.  Both teams had great seasons with the women's program making the semi-finals of the north division and the men's team falling short of a bronze medal in penalty kicks.

The Rowing and Cross Country running programs had abbreviated seasons but were able to get some competitions in this past year and represented the Rustlers well.

The curling teams had a solid season with the women's team losing in the bronze medal game and the mixed team returning from the Championships with the ACAC Championship banner

The Rustlers added the sport of women's hockey this past year and competed in the AJFHL.   The program had a great season which culminated in a provincial championship victory.  The application to join the ACAC women's hockey league next year was submitted and it was mentioned they are fairly confident the Rustlers will be competing against other ACAC institutions next season.

The Volleyball teams also had a great season.  The men's team was hampered by injuries for most of the season but competed to the end losing out in the North semi-final.  The women's played some great volleyball finishing the season with an ACAC Silver medal

The Basketball teams collectively had the most successful season with the men's program battling in the final four and returning home from the championship with a Conference Bronze medal.  The women's team was able to repeat their gold medal performance from the 2019 – 2020 season, earning a trip to the national championships where they returned home with a national bronze medal.

All in all 146 student-athletes donned the Rustler logo and competed at some point and time this past year.  It was also mentioned that of the 6 league teams who competed in CCAA level sports this past year 5 of them held a spot in the national rankings at some point and time this past year.

The evening started with President Dr. Alice Wainwright Stewart presenting awards to the top academic students from each team.  The collective GPA of the top students was 3.8.  academically and 6 student-athletes will be nominated for Academic All Canadian awards later this year.

Individually Rustler student-athletes received a total of  13 ACAC  All-Conference awards this past year across all sports as well as one Rookie of the Year in women's volleyball and female player of the year in Women's Volleyball and Women's Basketball.  Rustlers head coaches Chris King women's basketball and Taylor Dyer men's volleyball were named coach of the year in their sport and gender.

Nationally Jenay Varga from Women's Volleyball was selected as one of the top 12 female volleyball players in Canada, while women's basketball player Tori Dugan was selected by the CCAA as the top female basketball player in Canada.  Women's basketball head coach, Chris King was selected as the top women's basketball coach in the country.

Many student-athletes from all the teams were acknowledged for their accomplishments over the year and the evening culminated with the Rustlers Athletes of the Year being announced.  For the women, 5th-year women's basketball player Tori Dugan, who was acknowledged as the CCAA Player of the year a week prior and led her team to the women's basketball program's first-ever national medal, won the honors.  On the men's side 5^th year men's basketball player Artavis Holiday was awarded the department's top honor.  Holiday received an ACAC first-team All-Conference nod and led the fairly young men's basketball team to an ACAC bronze medal.

Tori Dugan gave the graduating player speech at the end of the night and talked about her time at Lakeland.

Celebrating all of the successes this past season was a great way to end the athletic season but just being able to get an entire season in for the student-athletes, and to once again be able to gather to celebrate as a department, was the biggest piece to celebrate.