North Peace Grizzlies’ golf squad attends provincial championships

LANGLEY, B.C. — North Peace Secondary School’s (NPSS) golf squad had a memorable experience at this week’s BC School Sports AAA provincial championship.

The Grizzlies qualified for the tournament, held at Langley’s GreenTee Country Club, by virtue of capturing their zone championships held at 108 Golf Resort in 108 Mile Ranch in late May by nine strokes.

The school’s vice-principal, Jaclyn McNicol, spoke to Energeticcity.ca about the team’s advancement to facing the top squads in the Lower Mainland at the competition, which wrapped up on Thursday, June 4th.

In a competition of 22 schools, the team finished in 21st place. 

The school had halted the golf program in 2019 and revived it in 2024.

“This is the first year that they’ve qualified for provincials, so I think it was successful,” said McNicol. “They went down there, and there was some really great golf happening.”

The squad consisted of students Carson Arberry, Easton Goulet, Mason McGinnis, Trip Turnbull and Walker Brown, coached by Ryan Galay, Aiden Craig-Steele, Phil Hiscock and Jonah Burridge.

While Hiscock was with them to capture the zone title, Burridge made the trip south and described the team’s experience as positive, receiving compliments from other coaches on the team’s sportsmanship.

“The boys had a lot of fun down there,” said Burridge. “Even though sometimes some of their individual results weren’t exactly what they were hoping for, they handled themselves admirably.”

Scores during the tournament were tabulated by each team’s total score. The Grizzlies ended day one on Tuesday, June 2nd, in a tie for 20th place with Robert Alexander McMath Secondary of Richmond.

Turnbull and McGinnis’ individual rounds placed them in the top 30 overall. Meanwhile, Goulet finished the first day at nine over par, Brown at 24 over par and Arberry at 29 over par.

On day two, both McGinnis and Turnbull continued their consistency and had identical scores from the first day, with Turnbull scoring at four over par and McGinnis at six strokes over par.

McGinnis took 26th position on individual scores, while McGinnis placed 50th. The team’s total score of 338 over par throughout two days had them finish 21st.

The overall team title was captured by Vancouver’s St. George’s Senior School.

McNichol sees a bright future for the NPSS golfing program, given the squad was dormant for several years following the Covid-19 pandemic.

“These past few years have been about rebuilding the program with a group of people who love the sport,” said McNichol. “We believe this will continue in the following years.”

The BC School Sports AAA provincial golf championship took place from Tuesday, June 2nd to Thursday, June 4th in Langley at GreenTee Country Club.