Browsing: team

By: Ed Weaver  /  November 1, 2024  /  Photo: Ed Weaver

Wellsboro rallied from trailing 2-1 to defeat top-seeded Troy 3-2 to win the program’s 9th District IV Volleyball championship at Athens High School on Thursday, October 31.

Troy swept the regular season series with Wellsboro, defeating the Lady Hornets 3-0 back on September 17th and 3-1 two weeks ago. Troy edged Wellsboro for the NTL championship, however the Lady Hornets got the better of their NTL foes. Wellsboro, along with Williamsport, are the only two teams to take Troy to five sets this season.

“We talked about us not winning in nine years and Troy last winning 10 years ago, but it’s amazing,” 2nd year head coach Darci Pollock said. “To come back to the program that I went through to bring back a district championship is the best feeling I’ve ever had.”

Coach Pollock was a senior on Wellsboro’s last District Championship team in 2015-16, when the Lady Hornets defeated Wyalusing 3-1.

After Troy scored the first set’s opening point the Lady Hornets rattled off six consecutive points to take a 6-1 lead. Troy closed the game down to 7-5, then eventually tied the set up at 10-all. The rest of the set went back and forth when Wellsboro broke a 17-all tie to push their lead to 21-17. Troy rallied to tie the set up at 21-all and later at 22-22, before the Lady Hornets scored the next three points, closing out the set on a kill by senior Lexi Urena to go up 1-0.

Wellsboro started off the second set with 4 quick points before Troy rallied and scored the next 4 to tie the set up. Both teams battled back-and-forth, neither leading by more two points until late. Troy trailed 16-14 before outscoring Wellsboro 6-1 to take a 20-17 lead before closing out the set on a 5-2 run to win the set 25-19 to even it up at 1-all.

Troy completely dominated Wellsboro in the third set, winning 25-9. The Trojans took an early 7-0 lead, then pushed it to 14-4 before closing out the set on a 11-5 run to take a 2-1 lead in the game.

“I don’t know the last time we came out like that in the first set against a team like that,” continued Pollock. “Usually we drop the first set and comeback in the 2nd and 3rd, so it was definitely opposite of what we’re used to. A lot of our girls have been fighting colds this week, and they weren’t at their best, so to see them fight through and get to the 5th set is incredible.”

“I kept telling the team every mistake, every error, we have to let it go,” senior Paige Logsdon said. “It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore. Every set is a new game, and especially after the 3rd set we have to just let it go.

Along with Logsdon, Urena helped rally the team after falling behind 2-1.

“We just kept saying this could be our last game and that we really need to push and work as a team,” Urena added. “We just tried to keep a positive attitude, even when things don’t look good.”

Wellsboro was able to shake off the third set as they rallied to take the 4th, 25-21. Trailing 5-1 early, the Lady Hornets fought their way back within two points at 8-6, then went on a 4-0 run to take a 10-8 lead. Troy regrouped and went on a 4-0 run of their own to retake the lead at 12-10, before the Lady Hornets rattled off five straight points to push the lead back to 15-12. Wellsboro maintained their two point lead until the end of the set when they pushed it to 4 points to even the match up at 2-all and force a 5th set. In the final set Wellsboro got out to a 6-1 lead before Troy went on a 10-3 run to lead 11-9. Wellsboro scored the next two points to knot the set up at 11-all, then took the lead at 13-12 on a Urena kill.

Troy answered back with a point to tie the set up at 13-all, but a Logsdon kill put the Lady Hornets back in front at 14-13. After Troy took a timeout, Urena put the ball in play for the final time of the night and sophomore Blake Eckart made the game’s final kill.

“I knew of the bus ride here that we were going to win,” Eckart said. “I just wanted it so bad for Paige, Lexi, and all the seniors. I can’t even explain it.”

“We’ve been pushing for this all season,” Logsdon continued. “We lost to Troy the past two times we played them but we knew this time we’d have to give it our all. It’s just incredible.”

“I’m still in shock,” said Urena. “We worked so hard for this moment. Our passers and our setters gave me great opportunities all night. I’m just really thankful for my team.”

“Lexi played the best game of her career tonight,” commented Pollock on her senior captain. “She is a monster. She goes out there and gets the job done and she took it personal in the third set and told the team we have to get it together.”

Urena led Wellsboro with 12 kills, 7 points and 38 digs. Logsdon finished with 11 kills, 5 solo blocks and 3 assisted blocks, and Eckart added 8 kills, 7 points, and 20 digs. Junior
Taylor Main made 16 assists, scored 7 points (2 aces) and had 2 blocks, sophomore Ellie Largey recorded 15 assists, and sophomore Madison Cruttenden made 26 digs and scored 18 points with 2 aces.

Next up for Wellsboro (18-4, 12-2 NTL Large School Division) is a match up with District II champion Holy Redeemer on Tuesday.

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‘RUN – The Athlete Refugee Team Story’, shares the incredible and inspirational story of the Athlete Refugee Team (ART), from its formal beginnings in early 2017 through the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic last year that halted, albeit temporarily, their seemingly impossible journey towards the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Three years in the making and released in 2020, the feature-length documentary (93 minutes) by director Richard Bullock begins with an introduction to some of the refugee athletes selected to compete on the inaugural Refugee Olympic Team in Rio, who train at the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation training camp in Ngong, Kenya.

We meet Loroupe, a pioneer in women’s distance running renowned now as much for her community development and peace-making efforts as for her achievements in sport, who approached World Athletics and the IOC with the refugee team concept and who helped hand-pick those athletes from trials competitions at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northeast Kenya.

And, we follow the athletes’ journey after that ground-breaking and symbolic debut on the world stage at the Rio Games when the programme shifted its focus to longer term goals as it expands to include refugees based in other areas.

But like the best documentaries, the film is at its finest when it shares personal moments that illustrate the challenges and the difficult choices the athletes face, both in and out of training and competition and when showing the importance the athletes place on representing the faceless millions around the world that are currently displaced in unprecendented numbers.

In its annual Global Trends report issued earlier this week, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reported that nearly 82.4 million people were living displaced from their homes at the end of 2020, a further four per cent increase on top of the already record-high 79.5 million at the end of 2019. Last year marked the ninth straight year of uninterrupted rise in forced displacement worldwide and witnessed a doubling of the number of displaced persons in the world since 2011, when the total was just under 40 million.

When the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games will finally be staged later this summer, the team’s participation – seven were ultimately chosen to compete in athletics – will once again became a source of inspiration for those tens of millions while their stories will resonate with millions more.

“We try to pass a message through sport for the people to recognise that the refugee, that whatever any human being can do, that refugees can also do,” says Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, who will make her second Olympic appearance in Tokyo. “Once they are given the chance.”

Bob Ramsak for World Athletics

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In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on 20 June, members of the Refugee Olympic Team will be sharing their stories in a series of features as they prepare for the Games in Tokyo. The series continues with sprinter Dorian Keletela.

With the exception of the football World Cup, there’s simply no stage in sport that can rival the Olympic Games – its global reach, its captive audience, the knowledge participants have that on that platform, for those few weeks, the whole world is watching.

As such, it’s an ideal place to not only entertain, but also inspire – a medium through which to send a message. For Dorian Keletela, a 22-year-old member of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, his performance in the men’s 100m in Tokyo will be about far more than his time or finishing position.

“The world needs inspiration, a good message,” he says. “The message I want to send is that refugee people are a strong people and they can do everything a normal person can do.”

A native of Congo, Keletela faced tragedy early in life. In his teens he lost both of his parents, who were victims of political persecution, and he moved in with his aunt, who cared for him thereafter.

“In Congo the important thing is to respect your Mum, and I respected her like a Mum,” he says.

In 2016 the two fled to Portugal where he spent more than a year in refugee centres, a difficult situation but one he had to endure to escape the risk at home.

“It was very complicated to live there,” he says of his native country. “But (leaving) was not really a choice.”

Keletela first took up athletics at the age of 15 while still living in Congo and, the following year, he ran 10.68 for 100m. After settling in Portugal and joining a local club, he lowered his best to 10.48 in 2017.

He arrived unable to speak Portuguese but these days he’s fluent and for all the difficulties he endured, he has since built a much better life, with plans to become a coach in the future.

“In Portugal I have more liberty,” he says. “This is very fundamental because people look for liberty in life. Congo doesn’t have liberty.”

In March this year, Keletela became the first member of the World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team to compete at the European Indoor Championships, powering down the track in the light blue singlet and finishing eighth in his 60m heat in 6.91.

Dorian Keletela in action at the European Indoor Championships

“This experience was very good for me because it was a championship of Europe,” he says. “I was thankful to all those who helped make it happen.”

A member of Sporting Lisbon, Keletela has worn their green and white stripes with pride at many domestic events over the past couple of years. Keletela joined the Athlete Refugee Team programme in 2019 but injury sidelined him from the World Championships that year. Despite the disruption to training caused by the pandemic last year, he lowered his 100m best to 10.46 (0.7m/s) in Lisbon and clocked 10.48 in the heats of the national championships.

His 2021 season is already shaping up well, with a 10.55 100m clocking in May and a wind-aided 10.51 (+2.2m/s) in June. He typically trains six days a week for up to three or four hours a day, and last week his hard work was rewarded when he was among 29 athletes from 11 countries named on the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. They will compete across 12 sports at the Tokyo Games.

“My objective is to make a mark,” he says. “I hope to do a personal best.”

But his goal also runs deeper than that.

Keletela knows that as countries become more multi-cultural, there can often be a growing swell of anti-immigration sentiment, but he wants people to know what life is really like for refugees, how the similarities to them far outweigh the differences.

“People sometimes have the impression refugees are bad but they are normal people,” he says. “Refugees are very motivated to invest in their life, to recreate their life. They are normal people that just had to move from their country that’s in conflict to go to another.”

Over time, he has seen the positives of being a refugee.

“For me, to be a refugee is an opportunity to be here to run,” he says. “If I wasn’t a refugee, I wouldn’t be able to run at the Olympics. I can be an inspiration for other refugees and people who have a similar experience to me because life is not always easy for everyone.”

Making the Games is something Keletela “never dreamed of” before arriving in Portugal, but ever since hearing about the refugee team a vision formed: him settling into the blocks alongside the fastest men in the world on the grandest stage in sport.

“When I saw this group I said, ‘maybe one day I will be part of this’,” he says. “And now this dream is my reality.”

Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics

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Seven refugee athletes will compete in athletics at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, part of a squad of 29 announced today (8) by the International Olympic Committee.

Competing under the Olympic flag as the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, the athletes will take part in 12 sports at the postponed Olympic Games from 23 July to 8 August, with athletics represented by the largest squad.

The team includes Rose Nathike Lokonyen, the team’s flag-bearer at the 2016 Games in Rio, and Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, another veteran of the 10-member 2016 team. Originally from South Sudan, the two live and train at the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation camp in Ngong, Kenya. Lokonyen will compete in the 800m and Lohalith in the 1500m.

Loroupe, a former marathon world record-holder, three -time world champion and 2000 Olympian, will reprise her role as team’s Chef de Mission.

Heading the men’s squad is Tachlowini Gabriyesos, the 23-year-old Eritrean native who clocked 2:10:55 at the Hahula Galilee Marathon on 14 March to become the first refugee athlete to better an Olympic qualifying standard. His run in Sapporo will mark the third marathon appearance for Gabriyesos, who trains with the Emek Hefer Club in Tel Aviv.

Jamal Abdelmaji Eisa Mohammed, a Sudanese refugee who has trained with the Alley Runners Club in Tel Aviv since 2014, will compete in the 5000m. Mohammed, 27, competed on the World Athletics Refugee Team (ART) at the 2019 World Cross Country Championships and 2019 World Championships. More recently, he represented the ART at the European 10,000m Cup in Birmingham last weekend, finishing fifth in the B race in 28:52.64. He set his 5000m lifetime best of 13:54.28 in 2019.

Paulo Amotun Lokoro, another South Sudanese refugee based at the camp in Ngong, will also be making his second Olympic appearance, again competing in the 1500m. Lokoro, 29, improved his personal best to 3:47.03 in 2019, and competed on the World Athletics ART at the 2018 World Half Marathon Championships and 2019 World Championships.

Dorian Keletela, a Congolese refugee based in Portugal, will compete in the 100m. Keletela, 22, competed in the 60m at the European Indoor Championships in March, the first refugee athlete to compete at those championships. Keletela has a 10.46 lifetime best set in 2020.

James Nyang Chiengjiek, another member of the squad in Rio who will compete in the 800m in Tokyo, rounds out the squad. He’ll be moving up from the 400m event he contested at the last Olympic Games.

Three coaches will be part of the athletics delegation: Francis Obikwelu, the 2004 Olympic silver medallist in the 100m; veteran middle distance coach Joseph Domongole from Kenya; and Alemayehu Gebrmeskel from Israel, who will coach the distance events.

The athletes were selected from a group of 55 refugee athletes currently supported by the IOC through the Olympic Scholarships for Refugee Athletes programme. At the Opening Ceremonies on 23 July, the team will be the second delegation to enter the stadium, sending a powerful message of inclusion, solidarity and hope to the world while bringing further awareness to the plight of more than 80 million people who are currently displaced worldwide.

IOC President Thomas Bach announces the IOC Refugee Olympic Team for Tokyo 2020

“Congratulations to all of you,” IOC President Thomas Bach said, addressing the athletes.

“When you, the IOC Refugee Olympic Team and the athletes from the National Olympic Committees from all over the globe, finally come together in Tokyo on 23 July, it will send a powerful message of solidarity, resilience and hope to the world. You are an integral part of our Olympic community, and we welcome you with open arms.”

UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi also offered his congratulations.

“I am thrilled to congratulate each of the athletes who have been named in the Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020,” he said.

“Surviving war, persecution and the anxiety of exile already makes them extraordinary people, but the fact that they now also excel as athletes on the world stage fills me with immense pride. It shows what is possible when refugees are given the opportunity to make the most of their potential.”

The full delegation will meet for the first time as a team at the Aspire Academy in Doha on 12 and 13 July before flying to Japan on 14 July. During the Games, the team will be hosted by Waseda University, which will provide accommodation and training facilities, before the athletes move to the Olympic Village for their respective competitions.

The IOC Refugee Olympic Team will compete in Tokyo under the French acronym EOR, which stands for Equipe Olympique des Réfugiés. In all other competitions, refugee athletes compete as part of the World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team (ART).

Bob Ramsak for World Athletics

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