Knight twins are also Week 2 athletes
Tennis player Ashley Stringer isn’t the only Newfoundland and Labrador athlete sticking around Winnipeg for the second half of the 2017 Canada Summer Games.
Twin brothers Evan and Eric Knight of St. John’s are also twosport athletes. The 16-year-olds competed in track and field in the Games’ first week, and are members of Newfoundland’s male soccer entry which opens up its preliminaryround schedule tonight (10 p.m. NT) against New Brunswick.
Stringer and her teammates finished with a 2-1-1 record and outscored the opposition 8-2. However, they had what was seen to have been a particularly tough draw — they were in a pool with British Columbia and Alberta, both top-five seeds.
Even though they were only outscored 2-1 in the preliminary round, the NL women couldn’t advance into medal contention, and were left to settle for ninth place after two placement-round victories.
Their play on the pitch will be the ultimate determinant, but the Newfoundland men have received what is deemed to be a much more favourable preliminary-round fate, having been placed in a pool with New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories.
The province has entries in three other team sports in the Games’ second half — men’s and women’s volleyball and female softball.
All three have two games today. The softballers face Ontario this morning and New Brunswick tonight, while the two volleyball teams have identical Monday opponents — Alberta and Quebec.
Other second-week sports for Newfoundland include cycling, golf, swimming and wrestling.
The swimmers hit the pool today, the cycling competition gets under way Tuesday and the wrestlers take to the mats Wednesday, the same day the golfers begin play at the Southwood Country Club.