Important Dates

If a Foothills Composite High School athlete can reproduce his effort from the South Central Zone track meet at the provincial championships this weekend he will have his name in the record books.

Jake Brewster cleared the bar at 2m to easily take home first place in the Junior boys high jump at the South Central Zones at Glenmore Athletic Park in Calgary May 25.

The provincial record is 2m, however, results at zones are considered unofficial because qualified officials aren’t at the event. If Brewster can repeat his performance this weekend at provincials in Medicine Hat, his name will go in the record books.

The Grade 10 student isn’t worrying about that though.

“I just want to try and win another red ribbon,” Brewster said while clutching his winning ribbon from zones. “It will totally depend on the weather if I have a chance to get a record. If it’s cold or wet it might bother me. All I can do is try my best.”

Two metres is approximately six-feet-six inches, which is akin to Brewster jumping over Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan.

Trying his best was not only good enough to set an unofficial record at South Central Zones, it was also good enough to give him first place in both the Junior boys long jump and triple jump at 5.96m and 12.00m respectively.

It was at the high jump pit where Brewster’s performance drew a large crowd cheering him on.

He won the competition when Alex Vincent of Canmore went out at 1.79m.

Brewster wasn’t done then though.

He didn’t miss until 1.90m, but he cleared the bar in his second attempt. He then got over 1.95m and asked for the bar to be set at two metres.

“Dylan Popkes (Falcons volunteer coach) said the highest he had ever jumped was about two metres and I wanted to try it,” Brewster said.

He made the crowd hang in there as Brewster missed his first attempt.

“I didn’t arch enough when I went over and I hit the bar with the back of my legs,” Brewster said. “On my second jump I left too soon.”

On his third and final attempt, Brewster cleared the bar and a loud ovation went up at Glenmore Athletic Park.

Foothills Falcons coach Carolyn Lenstra said she wasn’t surprised Brewster won the event, but she was astonished at how he did it.

“It was amazing what he did,” Lenstra said. “There aren’t any official records (for South Central Zones) but I’m sure that would be the record for Junior boys.”

Three jumpers hold the provincial record of 2m and the last one to do it was Haig Leonce from Calgary in 1998.

At present, the lone foothills area resident to hold a provincial track and field record is Brad McCuaig, a then High Riverite who attended Foothills Composite High School. McCuaig set a Junior boys record of 10.95 seconds in the 100m in 1987. He would go on to run for Canada’s Olympic 4×100m relay team in Sydney, Australia in 2000.

The Falcons knocked off Canmore at home 2-1 after penalty shots for the win. Keegan Dargie scored the only goal for the Falcons and the game remained tied at 1-1 after regulation time.

“All the games this year have been one goal games, for and against us,” said Falcons co-coach Paul Barrett, “It’s been very close and we are very fortunate to come out on top of all these games.”

Two overtime periods were played but neither team could score. Falcons goaltender Chris McCabe made two saves for his team in the shoot-out.

Barrett said the win marks his first title as a high school soccer coach.

“We had a very good core group of players,” said Barrett.

Defence proved to be the deciding factor for the Falcons, who came into the boy’s soccer playoffs as a wildcard.

“That was one of the reasons we did so well, I think. Our defence was solid, there was no weak links anywhere,” said Barrett.

On May 26, the Falcons knocked off top seed, the Holy Trinity Academy Knights, 1-0 in a semi-final game to qualify for the championship game in Canmore.

Clay Reboul, Nic Bulmer, Kale Parker, Clint Dunford and Will Barrett scored in the shoot-out for the Falcons.

South central zones are set to start at 9 a.m., June 2 in Chestermere.