(L-R) Avery Lajeunesse & Jaxon Steele (RDP Athletics)

By rdnewsNOW Staff

Avery Lajeunesse & Jaxon Steele

Red Deer Polytechnic Athletes of the Week

Nov 15, 2023 | 3:48 PM

Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP) Athletics has announced their most recent Athletes of the Week.

1. Avery Lajeunesse:
Hometown: Red Deer, AB
Bachelor of Education (4th year)

Forward Avery Lajeunesse and the Queens Hockey team extended their impressive winning streak to eight games with victories over the SAIT Trojans and the Medicine Hat College Rattlers this past weekend. The Queens have not dropped a game in over a month with their last loss coming against the Lakeland College Rustlers on October 14.

On Friday night in Calgary, Lajeunesse scored the winning goal three minutes into the third period in their 2-0 victory over the Trojans. After picking up the puck on the blueline, she drove towards the net and fired a wrist shot past her former teammate, Madison Fox, to open up the scoring in the game.

In their 3-2 road win against the Medicine Hat College Rattlers, Lajeunesse finished the night with two points, one goal and an assist. She was able to break the deadlock in the third period to put her Queens up 2-1. On the game-winning goal, Lajeunesse set up forward Jailyn Bablitz to put RDP up 3-1 which was very key as the Rattlers stormed back to within one four minutes later on the powerplay. The line that Lajeunnesse centred finished with four points in the win and she was later named the player of the game.

Spring 2025

Town of Penhold to begin construction of new public services building in 2025

Dec 14, 2024

Entrepreneur presentations

Catalyst Incubator Program finishes latest cohort with final pitches

Dec 14, 2024

episode 1: chatting with the mayor

The Everything Red Deer Podcast launches NOW

Dec 13, 2024

The 4th year Bachelor of Education student-athlete is currently riding a five-game point streak where she has four goals and two assists. But since the Queens last loss, Lajeunesse has put up 10 of her 13 total points on the season. She now sits in third place in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) in points, goals and assists. The Queens will be in action this weekend at home as they will battle with the NAIT Ooks at 7 p.m. for the top spot in the conference.

“Congratulations Avery and keep up the hard work on the ice,” said RDP Athletics in a release.

2. Jaxon Steele
Hometown: Calgary, AB
Bachelor of Kinesiology (3rd year)

Forward Jaxon Steele and the Kings Hockey team are coming off a very tough but crazy weekend against the SAIT Trojans. RDP and the Trojans combined for a total of 24 goals in two games with SAIT coming out on top in both to extend the Kings slump to four games. But it was a breakout weekend for Steele finishing with four goals, two of which came on the powerplay.

He entered this weekend with just two assists and no goals since the 2021/2022 season. The goal drought would end in the middle frame on Friday in Red Deer to put the Kings down by just one goal, halfway through the second. He would add his second goal of the game on the powerplay with six seconds left in the period to tie it up at five.

Despite coming off the 7-6 loss on Friday, Steele came out of the gate ready to play on Saturday hoping to help his Kings bounce back with a win. He scored his second powerplay goal of the weekend to put the Kings up 2-1 in the opening period in Calgary. But the Trojans followed this up with four unanswered goals. Two minutes into the third period, Steele answered back with his second goal of the game. Unfortunately, the Kings could not claw back and fell 7-4.

They will have this weekend off but will be back in action for their final two games of the semester on November 24 and 25 as they travel off to Saskatchewan to clash with the Briercrest College Clippers.

“Congratulations Jaxon and keep up the scoring prowess,” said RDP Athletics officials in a statement.

—–

Download the rdnewsNOW mobile app on Google Play and the Apple App Store for all the latest updates on this and other stories.