Two teens from Bragg Creek were among the 341 athletes representing Alberta at the 2019 Western Canada Summer Games, held Aug. 9 to 18 in Swift Current, Sask.
Volleyball player Carson Brennan bumped, setted and spiked his way to a bronze medal in the men’s beach volleyball competition, while Isabelle Orsler pedaled to four top-20 finishes in the women’s cycling events.
Brennan, a 17-year-old member of Calgary’s Canuck Stuff Volleyball Club, earned the medal alongside teammate Colby Nemeth, of Red Deer. The pair comprised one of Alberta’s two male-beach-volleyball teams at the Games – Alberta Grey – and they won five of their seven matches to come away with hardware.
Brennan and Nemeth’s competition got off to a positive start Aug. 10, with comfortable sweeps over Manitoba Gold and Nunavut.
The next day, the pair tasted defeat for the first time in Swift Current, losing in two sets to Alberta Blue. Brennan and Nemeth rallied back to defeat Manitoba’s other team in two close sets – 29-27 and 21-17.
Their performances during the first two days earned Brennan and Nemeth a spot in the playoffs. Their first hurdle was another encounter with Nunavut, and they dispatched the team yet again with another comfortable sweep.
The win saw Brennan and Nemeth qualify for the Aug. 12 semi-finals, which meant another tussle with Alberta Blue. The inter-provincial match-up resulted in Brennan and Nemeth’s second defeat of the games, as Alberta Blue ousted them from gold-medal contention with another two-set sweep.
In the bronze-medal match, Aug. 13, Brennan and Nemeth secured their podium placement with another sweep over Manitoba Gold, winning 22-20 and 21-14.
Competing at her first Western Canada Summer Games, 15-year-old Orsler showed consistency throughout her four cycling events, racing to a trio of 19th-place finishes and one 16th-place finish.
“It went very well for me,” she said. “I felt very strong, very fast, but it maybe didn’t really go as well as planned.
"I still kept my head up, kept pushing through and did not stop. I kept going and never gave up.”
Racing against cyclists a year or two older, the National Sport School student’s competition kicked off Aug. 10 with the women’s time trials. She completed the event in 29:49, resulting in a 19th-place finish.
The next day, Orsler followed up with another 19th-place showing, this time in the all-female road race with a time of 3:21.56. She placed 19th again in the all-female general classification Aug. 13, with a time of 4:34.50.
However, the highlight of Orsler’s week came Aug. 13, when she moved up a few spots to claim 16th in the all-female cross-country mountain bike race – her preferred event. She completed the race in 43 minutes and five seconds.
