When Jasmine Hurst and Layne Van Buskirk stepped on the field this year, they said they weren’t thinking about trophies, they were just having fun with their friends.
After winning the Royal Arcanum awards as the area’s top two athletes, it appears the strategy paid off.
Athletic directors and coaches from more than 20 area schools met at Franco’s to award the Royal Arcanum award, given annually to the top two athletes in Windsor and Essex County.
Hurst, a track and field athlete from General Amherst, won the award in Marty Cullen division for schools under 750 students, while Layne Van Buskirk, a volleyball player from Holy Names, won in the Carol Zavitz division for schools with more than 750 students.
“You just have to go out there and do it,” Hurst said. “Especially in volleyball since I haven’t played that much. It’s kind of like a learning experience.”
In Grade 10, Hurst first began playing volleyball on the advice of an older player. Since then, she’s developed into General Amherst’s “number one offensive option and one of the best attackers in the league,” coach Jeff Miller said.
“For an athlete to pick up a sport in Grade 10 without ever playing the sport and achieve first team tier-one all-star status in a few short years shows what type of athlete she is,” Miller said.
WINDSOR, Ont. Jasmine Hurst, won the Royal Arcanum award as the top athlete in Windsor-Essex General Amherst. GABRIELLE SMITH/Special to the Windsor Star
Last season Hurst was the only AA volleyball player to make the first tier all star team, leading the Generals to WECSSAA and SWOSSAA gold medals, as well as third-place at OFSSAA.
During her track and field season, she was named overall individual girls champion and senior girls champion, winning gold in the 100 metres, 100-metre hurdles, 400-metre and 4×100-metre races. She finished sixth in the 100-metre hurdles race at OFSSAA, something her coach John Rudak characterized as “one of those bad races you sometimes have.”
“I like running and training, running with my friends and being with my friends having fun,” Hurst said. “I want to go out and just do my best all the time. Personally I think I can always get better with more training. With training, I can keep improving.”
Next year, Hurst will be studying human kinetics at the University of Windsor and will be running for its track and field team.
“I want to stay with athletes and sports-related things,” she said. “Sports give you something to look forward to every day when there’s nothing else to do.”
As Hurst is getting ready to move on to post-secondary education, Van Buskirk still has another year left at Holy Names with a chance to follow Alana Gyemi as a back-to-back Royal Arcanum winner.
Gyemi won the award in 2011-12 and 2013-14 while studying at St. Anne high school. Joe Goulet, her badminton coach said she’s one of the best athletes he’s ever coached.
“She can play at the OFSAA level in not one, but two sports, which is amazing,” Goulet said. “She has a tremendous amount of grit and is an amazing all-around competitor. There’ve been countless times where I’ve seen her drop a set and then come back and get it.”
Living up to her reputation as a quiet individual on the court, Van Buskirk didn’t spend wax poetically about her accomplishments, pointing out the skills of other athletes in the region instead.
“It’s a great honour,” Van Buskirk said. “There are a lot of good athletes in the city.”
As part of Holy Names’ doubles tennis team, Van Buskirk won gold at the WECSSAA, SWOSSAA and OFSAA tournaments in the open division, which is designed for elite tennis athletes. Even with this success, she said she’s transitioning into a volleyball player because of its team focus.
“I love the team atmosphere,” she said. “It makes things a lot more fun. It’s good to play on a team with my friends and make new friends too. I just love the competition, I love sports.”
In following up her Royal Arcanum-winning year, Van Buskirk said she might try branching out into basketball or track and field.
She said she’s fielding offers from NCAA schools in the United States and plans to pursue a volleyball or tennis scholarship there during the summer. She said a decision on where she’ll go will probably happen early this fall.
abrockman@windsorstar.com
twitter.com/@alexsbrockman
