This past weekend, York students Thinesa Sriskandarajah and Kristina Vlcek captured a silver medal in women’s volleyball with Team Ontario, and Umar Khan won a bronze medal in the shot put event at the Canada Summer Games in Charlottetown, PEI.
Sriskandarajah of Scarborough and Vlcek of Toronto were members of a dominant Ontario volleyball team that finished the round robin undefeated and atop Pool C standings with victories over Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Ontario’s 4-0 record advanced the team directly to the semifinals, where the women cruised to an easy 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-19) victory over Alberta to set up a showdown in the final with Manitoba, the other undefeated squad.
In the championship match, Ontario raced out to an early 1-0 lead by winning the first set 25-18, but from there Manitoba turned up its play and won the next three sets by scores of 25-17, 25-21 and 25-21 to collect the gold medal while the Ontarians had to settle for silver. Sriskandarajah, a kinesiology student in the Faculty of Health, finished the contest with eight kills and led her teammates nine digs, while Vlcek, an administrative studies student in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, had nine kills.
Khan, who is joining the Lions track and field team this season, picked up the bronze in the shot put with a throw of 15.15 metres, his third-best throw ever. He got off to a bit of a slow start with a foul and a pair of throws at 14.28 metres, but picked it up after that, throwing 15.15 metres on his fifth attempt to vault onto the podium. Andrew Smith of Saskatchewan ran away with the gold medal. All of Smith’s throws were over 16 metres and his best toss was marked at 17.14 metres. Justin Greif, also of Saskatchewan, won the silver with a throw of 16.03 metres.
The final medal tally for York student-athletes at the Canada Summer Games was seven. Also winning medals were Reid Hall and Adam Podstawka (gold, beach volleyball), Tyrone Halstead (silver, 100-metre sprint and bronze, 200-metre sprint), Christopher Theriau (silver, 110-metre hurdles) and Kristin Obrochta (bronze, hammer throw).