WEYBURN – Weyburn athlete Ella Schenher, 15, is preparing to represent Saskatchewan for three different sports this year: football, lacrosse and hockey.
Football Saskatchewan U18 Team Sask Women’s Football team will be playing for the national title at the Canada Cup in Ottawa, the week of July 22-29.
Saskatchewan Lacrosse U17 Team Sask’s Female Box Lacrosse team is playing for the national title at the Lacrosse Canada Nationals in Regina on August 14-20.
Hockey Saskatchewan’s top 34 Sask First program will be held at the Sask First tournament in Swift Current in September.
She also is part of the Team Sask Female Elite Hockey Program who attended the NAFE Showcase in Blaine, Minnesota this June. She played last year as well in Blaine and in Las Vegas, Nev.
Asked what aspect of these three sports she enjoys most, she replied, “For football and lacrosse I enjoy the physicality of the sport, and for hockey, scoring.”
As for what skills she’s been able to develop, Schenher replied, “These sports are all pretty different, but they have all helped me develop my skills differently and each help in the other. The hand-eye coordination is different for each sport and broadening that skill in different ways has helped me overall as an athlete.”
She added that physicality is the main thing she carries over from sport to sport.
“Each sport requires different usage of my muscles, so by playing multiple sports I have been able to develop my entire body and that helps in each sport I play,” she said.
One coach who has helped her and encouraged her along the way was Randy Uhren from Minor Football.
“I have had so many coaches over the years that have all played an important role to me whether it was a positive or negative experience. But one coach who was a big influence to me was Randy Uhren,” she said.
“I was very lucky to have Randy coach me in football for all but one year that I played for Weyburn Minor Football. He accepted me as a female player, but didn’t treat me any differently from the boys. He gave me the opportunity to find my place on the field that was best for not only me but for the team as well. But mostly he took the time to understand me not only as an athlete but as a person.”
Schenher started playing football the first moment she could, in 2016 with the Weyburn Minor Football Association. She played full tackle co-ed football for seven years. As a female athlete, she was able to play an additional year with WMF and in her final year was named the U14 Offensive MVP of the Moose Jaw Minor Football League.
Schenher started playing hockey in 2014 with Hockey Weyburn. She started playing spring hockey in 2017 with the Grrrowl Program based out of White City, and last year moved to the Team Sask Program.
This coming season she will be playing for the U18 AAA Regina Rebels.
Lacrosse is a newer sport for Schenher. Although she played in Weyburn Lacrosse Association's inaugural year, she focused on hockey after that season and just came back to lacrosse last year.
She was not registered at the start of the season last year, but was asked if she would come play as the program was short a few kids, and she’s never looked back.
