Barry Stewart, Agassiz-Harrison Observer
Two local athletes are competing for Team BC this week at the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg.
Twenty-year-old Brendon Donegan is pitching for the B.C. men’s softball team and 15-year-old Katrina Lawley is on the post for the women’s basketball squad.
Lawley, who is starting Grade 11 at AESS this September, said she got involved in the game in Grade 4 and has played competitively since Grade 8. Along the way, she’s been getting closer and closer to the basket and now towers at 6-feet 3-inches (190 cm).
“There’s another girl who is 6’-3” and another who is 6’-6” on the team,” she said last week, before leaving for the Games.
“I had to go through a series of try-outs,” she added. “Out of the 100 who tried out, they got it down to 12. Three of them are girls I played with on the U-15 BC team last year.”
The team has been together for a couple of months and to get some games in, they travelled to Portland for a tournament against some stiff competition. Friendlies against some visiting Saskatchewan teams went better.
“We won against the U-16 team by 20, but lost to the U-17 by 15,” she recalled.
Lawley is unsure of her plans after Grade 12 but looks forward to the coming two years.
“I know I want to play through high school and see how it goes.”
While Lawley could hone her skills in the school gym, Donegan’s chosen sport required travel… a lot of it. Traveling was in his bones, though, as he made the long daily trip to St. Jean Brébeuf school in Abbotsford throughout his secondary years.
“Growing up, we had minor teams in Chilliwack and all throughout the Fraser Valley,” Donegan said. “At around 17 or 18, I started to go to Vancouver to play in one of the ball leagues. Now, I play for the Richmond Athletics, mostly as a pitcher.
“Right now, I’m throwing 73 to 74 miles per hour. I’d say, for my age, I’m in the top two in the country, for speed,” he said.
His skills as a batter are also getting highlighted at the Canada Games.
“We’ve got seven-inning games, so we can pitch an entire game. It’s probably around 100 pitches a game,” Donegan, who works on construction projects all over the Lower Mainland, said.
“We had three try-outs,” he said, “but as a pitcher, you already get noticed pretty good. We have three pitchers on the team but two of us will do the bulk of the pitching.”
Donegan had been on the junior national roster for four years, going to their camps but never quite cracking the travelling team, which was more eastern-based. He’s been a gold-medalist many times, provincially and in western Canada - and now he’s getting international attention.
“I threw a one-hitter against the Czech Republic on Canada Day, in Vancouver,” he said. “I got invited to pitch for the Great Britain national team, which was pretty cool.”
After the Canada Games, Donegan will be attending some tournaments in the States, then he’s off to Holland for a Super Cup Tournament.
“All the men’s tournaments are sponsored. They cover all the expenses, typically — and even some spending money,” Donegan said. “I’d like to get down to New Zealand and more of Europe. I can only go up, as long as I stay healthy.”
•••••
Games updates: as of Tuesday, Lawley’s team were 2 and 2, going into a playoff for fifth and sixth place against New Brunswick on Wednesday night. Dad, Greg Lawley, went along for trip and reported, “Katrina’s having a great experience.”
Donegan’s team had only two wins after eight games, putting them in eighth place so far. His dad, Jeff, said on Monday, “Brendon is hitting great. He’s leading his team with a .467 batting average, two steals and the most hits overall.”