By Bill Potrecz - November 8, 2018
Just one look was all it took for Riley Hart to know Queen’s University was right for him.
The 18-year-old, Grade 12B student at Saint Michael Catholic High School realized a dream come true Thursday, signing on the dotted line to play football at Queen’s beginning next season.
Hart, who received a four-year, $18,000 scholarship, officially signed up in the gym at Saint Michael with those closest to him looking on.
“It means the world, especially to have my teammates and family here. Everybody has been helping me out and I wouldn’t be here without any of these guys,” he said. “They put me in positions to succeed and luckily I was able to take that position and run with it.”
Hart said there was interest from other schools, but he kept coming back to Queen’s.
“Queen’s was always somewhere I envisioned myself going,” he said. “I went to Kingston with my friend and ever since then I wanted to go back. It’s a great thing. It’s something I always wanted to do.”
Hart, who plans to major in sociology with the thought of becoming a police officer, is a solid student as well, averaging 82 per cent.
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By Bernie Puchalski - October 17, 2018
Julie Manlow (11) is the heart and soul of the Saint Michael’s senior girls basketball team.
A one-minute span in the fourth quarter of a game Wednesday versus the Saint Paul Patriots showed the value of Julie Manlow to the Saint Michael Mustangs senior girls basketball team.
With her team trailing the Patriots 50-46 with less than three minutes left in the game, the Grade 12 student drove to the basket and passed to teammate Aliyah Glaze for a wide-open three to make the score 50-49. The 17-year-old did the same thing on the next possession and Glaze hit a two-pointer to give her team a 51-50 advantage. Manlow then stole the ball from a Saint Paul player on the next possession and made a layup to give her team a 53-50 lead. She then proceeded to steal the ball on Saint Paul’s next three possessions and hit a free throw to give her team a 54-50. Following a wild finish, the Mustangs escaped with a 57-56 in Niagara Catholic Athletic Association play.
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SECOND HIGHEST IN ONTARIO’S ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SCHOOL BOARDS FOR FOURTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR
The Ontario Ministry of Education has released the 2017 graduation rates for all publicly funded schools in Ontario. For the fourth consecutive year, Niagara Catholic’s four-year graduation rate of 91.3 per cent has placed second among the 57 English-language school boards in Ontario. Niagara Catholic was sixth out of all 72 Ontario school boards. Niagara Catholic’s five-year graduation rate of 93.2 per cent places the Board third among all English-language District School Boards, and sixth among all 72 Ontario school boards.
The Board’s four-year graduation rate is the 13.3 per cent above provincial averages of 79.8 per cent, and 4.8 per cent above the provincial rate of 86.3 per cent for students who took five years to complete the required number of credits to receive their Ontario Secondary School Graduation Diploma.
Niagara Catholic’s outstanding graduation rates fulfill a strategy laid out in the Board’s Vision 2020 Strategic Plan to consistently exceed the Ministry of Education’s goal of a province-wide graduation rate of 85 per cent. This multi-year trend of top-percentile performance is evidence of the leadership, support and contributions of our Board, staff and partners in Catholic education, which we celebrate every day.
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Matthew Riva found out the benefits of hard work last summer.