Emma Boyd is looking to repeat her gold-medal winning performance this weekend in Sidney.
The 15-year-old Tsawwassen Lawn Bowling Club member is set to compete in the 2016 junior provincial championships and is out to defend the title she won last year. Competition starts today and wraps up Sunday morning.
"It is very exciting. It's going to be hard. There are a lot of good players, but I'm just excited for the challenge," she said. "I'm hoping for a lot of good games. It's different every single game. I've played a couple of these girls three years in a row and I've won and they've won, so it's hard to gauge."
The provincials mark two big months of competition for Boyd as she plans to also compete in the U25 nationals in August in North Vancouver.
After her gold-medal win last year at provincials, she qualified for her first nationals in Saskatoon, calling it a "fun experience."
Her grandmother Mary Hargreaves, who is the Tsawwassen Lawn Bowling Club junior coach and Vancouver and District junior director, introduced her to the game.
"I started when I was 10. My grandma brought me out and I thought it was a fun game and something that I could do with her," Boyd recalled.
"But as soon as I saw other girls winning and getting the chance to travel to places like Australia, I thought that was really cool. That's what I want to do - travel all over the world playing the sport that I love."
Naturally, Hargreaves is proud of her granddaughter and what she has accomplished.
"We have a little bit of history repeating itself I think," Hargreaves said. "Our world bronze medalist Pricilla Westlake was mentored by her grandmother Marg Westlake and I'm doing the same with Emma. There are 14 juniors at our club, which is quite a high number. Our club has been a leader really in getting juniors into the game."
Hargreaves said it is important to have young people involved in lawn bowling to ensure the development of the game continues.
"If we do not get young people coming along, you can't sustain the life of the game," she said. "The amount of success that we have had with our young juniors and their grandmothers bringing them along, for instance, has been tremendous. As a club we have made a commitment to our junior program and the results speak for themselves."
