Local Sports

There are media reports in Australia that a woman convicted of manslaughter in the drowning deaths of her two sons in a small Alberta town has committed suicide.

It wasn’t perfect by any means, but the Hunting Hills Lightning looked like a team that wasn’t about to give the Central Alberta High School Football League title away without a fight.The Lightning scored the first four times they touched the ball and rolled over the Stettler Wildcats 49-7 in non-conference play before over 300 fans at Great Chief Park Thursday.

The Lindsay Thurber Raiders will still be one of the younger teams in the Central Alberta High School Football League this season, but they won’t be lacking experience.“We didn’t graduate that many and have a real strong group of Grade 11s and 12s returning,” said Raiders head coach Dave Smith. “Plus we have a whole bunch of good Grade 10s up from our junior program.”

If the Notre Dame Cougars are to reach the Central Alberta High School Football League final for a second successive year, head man Gino Castellan and his staff will have to employ their coaching skills more than ever.Unlike the 2012 season when the Cougars were loaded with veterans — including several at the skill positions — and fell 27-26 to the Hunting Hills Lightning in the championship game, this year’s squad is loaded with newcomers.

Go ahead and call him a surprise winner.Silvan Dillier called himself just that Thursday after nipping Serghei Tvetcov at the finish line in downtown Red Deer to win the second stage of the Tour of Alberta.

Ryan Machan and business partners Jesse Fox and Gary Vig had the best interests of Red Deer mixed martial arts fighters in mind when they founded the Havoc Fighting Championship in June of last year.“We recognized that is was hard to get fights with just one local Red Deer promotion company (Pure Fighting Championship headed by former UFC fighter Jason MacDonald) that held only two shows a year,” Machan said Wednesday.

The Hunting Hills Lightning have some holes to fill, but head coach Kyle Sedgwick is confident the two-time defending Central Alberta High School Football League champions will be in the running once again.“We look alright,” he said prior to practice Tuesday. “We’re loaded at the skill positions, but do lack some experience on the lines.”

Red Deer BMX Club members garnered 56 medals — including 16 gold — during Provincial Series races 5 and 6 at Great West Adventure Park during the weekend.Lindsay Hall won a gold medal both Saturday and Sunday, as did Molly Simpson, Ryland Goulding, Nicholas Hammer and Taye Neish. Cody Pratt picked up a gold in the cruiser class Saturday, while other gold-medal winners Sunday included Olivia Rush, Eden Price, Royce Redbear, Ty Redbear and Evan Stahl.

It’s not often that a double bogey will garner a victory on any golf course.And yet, A.J. Armstrong took top honours in the boys division of the McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour championship tournament Monday at Wolf Creek with a double bogey six on the par-4 15th hole, beating Matt McCourt of Drayton Valley in a sudden-death playoff.

Red Deer Boxing Club product Arash Usmanee nearly became a world champion Friday. Nearly. Usmanee took on International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior lightweight champion Argenis ‘La Tormenta’ Mendez in the main event of an ESPN Friday Night Fights card and battled the champ to a 12-round majority draw.