A gold medal for the Dover Bay Dolphins at BC high school provincials and a silver medal for the VIU Mariners women's volleyball team at CCAA nationals highlight a busy weekend in local sports. (Dover Bay Dolphins/VIU Mariners)

By Dan Marshall

Bringing home medals

National medals highlight massive weekend for Nanaimo sports teams

Mar 11, 2024 | 9:41 AM

NANAIMO — It was one of the busiest weekends of the year on the local sports calendar.

Between national, provincial and regional tournaments and playoff and regular season action there were some big wins and tough losses along the way.

Both VIU Mariners volleyball teams were in national tournaments and brought home medals, albeit not the gold each team were chasing.

The women’s side earned a silver in Red Deer on Saturday, March 9, via a straight sets loss to Lakeland, making it the seventh national medal in eight years for the VIU program.

Coach Shane Hyde said he was happy with the team’s performance throughout the entire week at the CCAA tournament.

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“There is no question we are disappointed with how we showed up in the final but all season long this team battled. To be the second best CCAA team in Canada is something to be so proud of. We will learn from this and be even better next year.”

The Mariners men’s squad took home a bronze medal from their nationals at Camosun in Victoria with a 3-1 victory over the Humber Hawks on Sunday, March 10.

It was the fifth national medal in the history of the men’s volleyball program.

At the BC high school boys basketball tournament in Langley the Dover Bay Dolphins captured the 3A title with a 75-61 victory over M.E.I. out of Abbotsford on Saturday.

“We knew it was possible,” said head coach Darren Seaman. “The guys were willing to do the work. They literally worked six days a week since April of last year trying to do this.”

Students from Nanaimo’s Island Top Team had a massive medal haul at the South Island Open Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament.

Youth team instructor Cory Burton took six athletes to the event and they all earned gold or double gold with 22 match victories in total.

None of the ITT competitors surrendered a single point in any of their matches.

The mid-Island VIJHL hockey season came to close on Saturday.

The Oceanside Generals lost out in Game 6 of their first round playoff series with Comox Valley, falling 2-1 in overtime.

Oceanside won the league title in 2023 and recently finished the regular season with 27-15-5-1 record, good for third place in the VIJHL North Division.

Comox and Kerry Park will play in the North Division final this year.

There’s still three weeks left in the Nanaimo Clippers hockey season as they went 1-2 in a trio of games on the March 8-10 weekend.

Nanaimo lost 3-1 and 6-4 to Surrey and beat Victoria 5-3.

There’s another local team with a national tournament on the horizon.

The VIU Mariners men’s basketball squad opens play at the CCAA nationals March 13 in New Brunswick.

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