A fifth-year volleyball player and the first-ever four-time national badminton player of the year were named Douglas College's top athletes for 2012.
Burnaby North grad Jeff Taylor and RuiLin Huang of Burnaby won the male and female athlete of the year awards at the Douglas College year-end banquet in Coquitlam on Thursday.
Taylor helped the Douglas men's volleyball team to a silver medal at the Canadian Colleges' Athletic Association national championships.
Huang won an unprecedented fourth straight national college women's singles title and was also named the PacWest player of the year.
Taylor, an outside hitter on the PacWest champion Royals, was honoured as a first team provincial all-star and as the provincial tournament MVP following a four-set win over Vancouver Island University. Taylor was also a CCAA All-Canadian and national tournament first all-star.
"I wasn't really expecting it, but I thought on the off-chance - I'm pretty happy. It's my last banquet," said Taylor.
The highlight of Taylor's volleyball career was the
time spent working with this current group of friends. The sting of losing the gold medal at the recent nationals to Humber College may never completely heal, he confided.
"I'll probably know these friends for the rest of my life, and I'll probably look back 10 years from now and think this was a pretty awesome team."
Huang helped Douglas capture its seventh consecutive provincial team championship.
"I am happy," said Huang after winning her fourth athlete of the year at Douglas. "As long as they need me, I'll be back. ... I have no other choice."
