The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, May 15, 2014 | 40 In far left photo, with Sixteen Mile Sports Complex in the background, Garth Webb's Lauren Kool (in yellow) battles M.M. Robinson's Taylor Lloyd during a recent Halton high school junior girls' soccer game at North Park. Inferior conditions on Webb's own field (left photo) force the Chargers to play all their home games off school grounds. | soccer photo by Michael Ivanin -- Special to the Beaver; field photo by Graham Paine -- Oakville Beaver HDSB plans to install drainage in Webb field continued from p.39 the cost at that time, but it did have an impact." Twelve of 16 HDSB high schools have natural fields Cullen says he understands the Garth Webb school community's disappointment about not having an artificial turf field, but he is quick to stress that grass is a completely viable alternative. Seventy-five percent (12 of 16) of the HDSB's high schools have fields with natural playing surfaces. "We have lots of sites with grass. I don't want to paint the picture that they've been left in some sort of sub-standard state," says Cullen. "I don't think Webb has been compromised in that regard." Webb's outdoor field also features a picturesque rubberized track around its perimeter. Anderson concedes that grass can be adequate, but only if the natural surface has a proper drainage system. "As soon as it rains once, the west end is really bad... Wherever you can see grass, it's only because the grass is taller than the water," he says. "It's unsafe to play on. If you have a dry spell of about two weeks, it's not bad." Cullen says there is no actual drainage equipment under the playing surface. "Normally, when we do a sod field of that caliber, we irrigate it and drain it. In this case, the landscape architect we've worked with for years said soil conditions are such that we can engineer them that they'll be fine for drainage and the rest of those things if we brought in (certain) products and quantities," Cullen says. "(The architect) is still convinced, as am I, that the field will be fine over time." Whether that's true or not, it's possible that nobody will ever know. Cullen says the HDSB plans to install a drainage system in the Webb field this spring, noting a tile drainage system has been proposed. The project would reportedly take approximately 10 weeks to complete, and Webb could have a ready-to-use grass field by the fall. "Anything is better than nothing right now," says Anderson, a former long-time junior A hockey coach who is also concerned about competitive disadvantages created by disparities in school facilities. "Maybe in the long run, (all schools) will go back to grass fields. Who knows." Garth Webb is not the only HDSB high school forced to play home games elsewhere this spring. Burlington's M.M. Robinson is hosting soccer contests at Corpus Christi, Burlington's City View Park and Oakville's North Park, while also playing baseball at Notre Dame. Iroquois Ridge's home for soccer this spring is Bronte Athletic Field. -- Jon Kuiperij can be followed on Twitter @Beaversports Hornets player wins gold in Europe Isabelle Hardy finally found the one thing that could keep her from achieving what she wanted -- her age. The Grade 7 École Forest Trail student attended tryouts for the national junior roller hockey team on the weekend, only to find out she needed to be at least 14 to make the team. The coaches still let her take part in the tryout, though, and she'll be back next year, looking to earn a spot on the Canadian team. In the meantime, she'll have to settle have to settle for her long list of accomplishments on the ice. After helping her Oakville Hornets peewee AA team win the Ontario Women's Hockey Association title in April, Hardy set out for Europe earlier this month with Pro Hockey Development. The girls' under-14 team of players from across Ontario visited the Czech Republic, where they practised at Jaromir Jagr's home rink in Prague, before going to Finland to play in the World Selects Hockey Tournament. Once again, Hardy helped her team take the gold, blanking the U.S.-based East Coast Selects 2-0 in the final. "It was really fun to play against all the other teams," Hardy said. "Not many people get to go to Europe to play hockey. We weren't sure how strong the other teams were going to be." The Pro Hockey squad finished second in its 10-team division in the round-robin to advance to the quarter-finals, where it defeated a Swedish team. In the semifinals, it met another American squad, the West Coast Selects, and won 2-1. Dominick Hardy, who coaches Isabelle on the Hornets, said his daughter excels at reading the play and moving the puck but it is her two-way game that stands out. "I used her mainly as a defensive forward (on the Hornets) and she still finished second on the team in scoring," he said. Those skills have helped her both on the ice and in roller hockey, the latter which she began playing when she was five. This spring, she also helped her Coyotes' roller hockey team earn a silver medal at the North American Roller Hockey Championships (NARCh) regional tournament, where she was the only girl on her team. And even though she didn't earn a spot on the Canadian squad, Hardy still had a reason to celebrate. She turned 13 the day of the tryouts and when the coaches found out, they surprised her with cupcakes. "It was a great experience for her," her father said. "The cupcakes were probably the highlight, though." -- Herb Garbutt Oakville trio at Royal Bank Cup Jr. A nationals The Toronto Lakeshore Patriots, who include Oakville residents Nathan Feric, Michael Prapavessis and Doug Bonar, needed a win last night (Thursday) to guarantee themselves a spot in the semifinals of the Royal Bank Cup national junior A hockey championships in Vernon, B.C. Lakeshore carried a 1-2 record into last night's contest with the host Vernon Vipers, who were also 1-2. The Dauphin Kings (Manitoba) were in first place with a 3-0 mark, Carleton Place Canadians (Central Canada) were second at 2-1, Doug Bonar and the Yorkton Terriers (Saskatchewan) | photo courtesy Tim Bates were fifth at 0-2. -- OJHL Images The top four teams after round-robin play advance to Saturday's semifinals. The championship game is scheduled for Sunday. Feric (goal), Prapavessis (goal, assist) and Bonar (assist) all earned points in Lakeshore's 5-1 victory over Yorkton Tuesday. The trio was held off the scoresheet in losses to Dauphin (2-1 on Saturday) and Carleton Place (4-2 on Tuesday). Goaltender Evan Buitenhuis, who started the season with the Oakville Blades before being traded to Lakeshore in December, posted a 2.33 goals-against average and .918 save percentage in the first three games.