The premature last vestiges of the high school sports season played out this week with the announcement of the Sportvictoria.com Greater Victoria All-City boys’ high basketball all-star team.
The players in the cancelled spring team sports of track and field, boys’ rugby and girls’ soccer won’t get that sense of closure.
So it was bittersweet for Ethan Boag of Claremont to accept his first-team hoops accolade knowing that girlfriend Jamie Kachonoski won’t be able to complete her high school career with the Spartans girls’ soccer team.
Grade 12 star Boag, the prize hometown recruit of the University of Victoria Vikes, led Claremont to seventh place last month in the B.C. Quad-A basketball championship at the Langley Events Centre. It was the last B.C. high school championship before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sport pretty much world-wide.
“It would have been unfortunate to miss provincials. I feel blessed to have been able to finish the season,” said the all-rounder Boag, who led Claremont to third place in the B.C. high school volleyball championship in the fall.
“So I feel for the spring athletes. I know how I would have felt. You play for five years to get to those moments. It’s sad for them.”
Island high school teams most affected by the spring cancellations are the dynastic Oak Bay track and field and Shawnigan Lake School rugby programs.
“The board would like to share in the disappointment with our member schools and student-athletes, especially those in Grade 12, who won’t have the opportunity to represent their school at the provincial championships this spring,” the governing body, B.C. School Sports, said in a statement.
“The zone and provincial championships are very special occasions and the pinnacle of the majority of student-athlete athletic careers. We are saddened by the necessity to cancel them.”
Graduating high school athletes such as Boag, who are headed to university sports programs in U Sports in Canada or the NCAA in the U.S., will train on their own through the spring and summer to maintain base fitness.
“I’m getting a bit of cabin fever,” admitted Boag.
“But I’m happy that my family is safe and everyone is home. I have been following UVic’s online workout program and have a sort of weight room at home and my dad has a hoop set up in the backyard.”
The six-foot-eight Boag, as dangerous outside as inside, will give UVic that seamless Euro-style, floor-stretching forward the Vikes have lacked the past few seasons.
Getting to Ring Road in the pandemic year will not soon be forgotten.
“Finishing Grade 12 online is definitely a different experience,” said Boag, who will be part of the worldwide prom-less Class of 2020.
“Hopefully, we can get a grad ceremony or recognition ceremony at some point. But that all depends on the virus.”
