After she was named the Most Valuable Player for four of the five teams she played on over the past school year, it came as little surprise that Lauren King-Nyberg was named Duncan Christian School’s Female Athlete of the Year for 2014/15.
A fantastic all-around athlete, King-Nyberg was named MVP for senior girls basketball and soccer, ball hockey, and senior badminton, and was also a key player on the senior girls volleyball team.
The Athlete of the Year award was welcome recognition.
"It means I worked my butt off," King-Nyberg said. "I played every sport to the best of my abilities. I guess everyone saw that, which is nice."
King-Nyberg credited her coaches and DCS athletic director Tom Veenstra with helping her accomplish so much as an athlete.
"The coaching is amazing," she said. "And Mr. Veenstra is just so awesome. He gets everything done. He’s fantastic."
Nick Kapteyn and Johnny Caron shared Male Athlete of the Year honours. Kapteyn was an Island all-star in basketball as he helped lead the Chargers to their fourth consecutive appearance at the provincial championships, and also played ball hockey and badminton. Caron scored the winning goal against Dwight School Canada at the Island boys soccer championship last fall, was MVP of the golf team, and started alongside Kapteyn on the basketball team. Both Caron and Kapteyn were selected to the Island Senior Classic basketball all-star game. Neither one was expecting to be named Athlete of the Year.
"I wasn’t really thinking about it," Kapteyn said.
"It’s pretty amazing to think about," Caron said. "I didn’t think I was going to be an athlete in Grade 9. I was unathletic, I didn’t have good coordination, I didn’t take it seriously."
While Kapteyn is putting sports aside to concentrate on his studies when he begins working on an engineering degree at Vancouver Island University next year, both King-Nyberg and Caron will play for the varsity basketball teams at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford. Like King-Nyberg, Caron noted the role that Veenstra’s efforts have played in his success.
"He’s a big part of it," Caron said. "He organizes everything. He puts us in the best tournaments. He works hard so that we can compete."
Sportsperson of the Year Juliet King spent much of the season working alongside Veenstra, serving as the gym supervisor and host of the elementary basketball tournament. She also took on any rec leadership job that came up, as well as being a key player on the senior girls volleyball, basketball and soccer teams.
King plans to pack her schedule with sports again next year when she comes back for Grade 12.
"Athlete of the Year would be nice," she said. "MVP, all-star. Maybe I’ll play more sports. I might try track or badminton. I just want to do as much as I can."
Duncan Christian’s Junior Athletes of the Year were Danielle Groenendijk, Mike Brandsma and Adam Kapteyn. Groenendijk was MVP of the senior girls volleyball team and the bowling team, Most Sportsmanlike Player on the senior girls basketball team, and a key member of the senior girls soccer team and track and field team. Both Brandsma and Kapteyn were all-stars at the Island junior boys volleyball tournament and shared MVP honours on the junior boys volleyball team. Brandsma was also named a player of the game in one of the Chargers’ matches at the provincial basketball championships, and Kapteyn was the MVP of the junior badminton team.
The Midget Athletes of the Year were Anna Corbett and Ben Kapteyn. Corbett was the MVP of the midget girls volleyball team and an important member of the soccer team, and Kapteyn played senior boys soccer, midget boys volleyball, junior boys basketball and junior badminton.
