FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 7, 2010

Twenty-eight of British Columbia’s top male volleyball athletes will converge upon Victoria over the next twelve days to hone their skills at the 19U Team BC Training Camp led by Camosun College Chargers head coach and former National Team captain, Charles Parkinson.



“This year’s Provincial team program is comprised of two elements,” explained Coach Parkinson. “A 19U travel team which will represent BC in the National Team Challenge Cup and an 18U training team made up of prospective athletes that will represent BC in the 2013 Canada Games.”



The 2010 National Team Challenge Cup (NTCC) is scheduled for July 23-25 in Toronto and will pit Provincial Teams from across the country against each other for the title. This year, the tournament will also be used as an identification/selection camp for Team Canada's Junior Men's National Team.



Tryouts for the 19U travel team were held in May and included athletes from UBC, Thompson Rivers (TRU) and Trinity Western (TWU) Universities, as well as college athletes from UBCO, University of the Fraser Valley, Douglas and Camosun.



Davis Proch, who just competed in his first year as a setter for Camosun, will help quarterback the team along with Colin Carson of TRU. Also joining the program are outstanding wing hitters like Brad Kufske (TWU), Derek Thiessen (TWU) and David Klomps (Douglas), and middles Alex Davis (TRU), Andrew Robson (Douglas) and Chris Howe (UBCO). Ian Perry (UBC) and Matt Krueger (TRU) will anchor the back row, playing the all important Libero position.



“The 19U team will be a hard working, physical and technically strong team,” commented Coach Parkinson. “The trick will be to knit players from the best programs in the province together in the space of 47 hours of training. With the raw material available and with all players healthy, however, BC should once again challenge for the title. It would also be nice to see two or three of our athletes represent Canada as part of the Junior National Team, something that is very possible if everyone performs to their potential at the right moment.”



The athletes vying for a spot on the 18U training team are also a competitive group and according to Coach Parkinson will stand among the Province’s best in the very near future.



“The competition for these positions was intense and the athletes worked extremely hard to prove themselves,” stated Parkinson. “There are about 20 exceptional prospects at the moment, 14 of which have made the team. Over the next while they will be pushed by some of the 17U athletes but the majority are bound for the best volleyball Colleges and Universities in Canada and will continue to develop into exceptional players.”



Featured on the 18U team are veteran Provincial team athletes Jordan Or and Tegan McGraw in the setting position, Provincial high school All-Star Bryce Koebel in the middle, along with Island athletes Nick Huxham and Riley MacKinnon, 6'9" KC Knight from the Gulf Islands, and wing hitters Stuart Richie, Chhase McFarlen, Rylan Brouwer and Adam Dutil, a big leaper and one of the surprise performers at the camp. In the Libero position will be Alberta bound Brendan Yao and the lightning quick Philip Ng.



The 19U and 18U teams will gather in Victoria and train together under one roof at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence July 8-19. While Coach Parkinson will provide direction and leadership for the overall training camp, Camosun Chargers assistant coach Dave Dooley will step up to fill the head coach position for the 18U team and will be assisted by newly appointed Capilano College head coach Scott Wenninger. Charles will be the head coach of the 19U NTCC squad with new Vancouver Island University Mariners co-head coach Abe Avender and Camosun alumnus Devon Parkinson, a BC Games and Canada Games medalist and fourth-year AUS All Star at Dalhousie University, assisting.





For more information, please contact:

Charles Parkinson, Head Coach

Camosun College Chargers Men’s Volleyball

cparkinson@shaw.ca

250-888-3714





Bonita Joe

Camosun College Chargers Athletics

4371 Interurban Rd, Victoria BC, V9E 2C5

Tel: 250-220-2506 Fax: 250-220-2502

joeb@camosun.bc.ca





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