Basketball may have emerged as the top hardware winner at the Laurentian Voyageurs Athletic Banquet - but the L.U. Indoor Track crew were not about to get lost in the dust.
On the same night that basketball stars Emilie Lafond and Brice Fandio walked off as Female and Male Athlete of the Year respectively, it was the Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School freshman track tandem of Milena Kulik and Shiloh Sauve that earned Rookie of the Year honours.
Laurentian women's head basketball coach Jason Hurley was recognized asCoach of the Year while Voyageur Awards were doled out to Margot West (nordic ski) and Evan Boudreau Munro (men's basketball).
Long-time cross-country supporter Jesse Winters, the man behind the Ramsey Lake Tour Race that has supplied more than $200,000 in bursaries to varsity runners at both Laurentian University and Cambrian College was presented with the Special Voyageur Award.
An OUA second team all-star this year, Emilie Lafond surpassed both the 1000 career points and 500 career rebounds plateaus while also finishing in the top ten in the league in bocks and free throws in 2025-2026.
Building off a highly successful rookie campaign in 2024-2025, Brice Fandio took his game to the next level, finishing fifth in league scoring (19.6 ppg), third in assists (108) and led the league in free throw percentage (86.9%), all of which was enough to earn the native of Marseille (France) a nod on the second all-star team.
Milena Kulik and Shiloh Sauve both hit the qualifying standard for the OUA championships in a pair of events in their first year at Laurentian, the former turning the trick in the 60m dash and the 300m distance while the latter stretched it out a little, earning his place in the 600m and the 1000m.
The Pride and Tradition recipients for each individual team were as follows:
Baseball: Ryan LacasseMen’s Basketball: Favour Ugbah
Women’s Basketball: Megan Axiak
Men’s Cross-Country Running: Keon Wallingford
Women’s Cross-Country Running: Valerie Vaillancourt
Men’s Curling: Julian Mariotti
Women’s Curling: Val Ouimet
Men’s Golf: Jacob Lacko
Women’s Golf: Vanessa Paterson
Men’s Track & Field: Keon Wallingford
Women’s Track & Field: Finlay Cuza, Alissa Diavolitsis, Milena Kulik, Lucia Salmaso
Men’s Nordic Skiing: Jamie Brain
Women’s Nordic Skiing: Margot West
Men’s Soccer: Theo Vieira
Women’s Soccer: Sophia Oommen
Student Therapist: Charlotte Fulop
Student Performance: Alec Tam
