A trio of R.F. Staples alumni — Jessica Carlyon, Sophie Desranleau and Tina Frose — will settle for silver following the national volleyball championship in Lloydminster last weekend.
The Lakeland Rustlers women’s volleyball team lost to the University of Fraser Valley Cascades at the CCAA Women’s Volleyball National Championship at Lakeland College on March 7-9.
More than 1,000 people filled the gymnasium to watch the Rustlers, ranked No. 6, battle the top-ranked Cascades for gold.
“After not pulling through in provincials, we were pretty happy to get second,” former Carlyon said. “We lost in the gold medal match to NAIT in Edmonton.
“So, there were five other teams that thought that they would do better at nationals than us
“But we had a huge crowd so there were a lot of people to congratulate us, and the board was proud that we finished with the best that Lakeland has ever done before.”
She added her mother, older sister and aunt attended the event.
However it was her old friends from R.F. Staples and current teammates, Desranleau and Frose, that were a critical part of her positive experience at nationals.
The trio worked hard to be a part of the strong performance at Lakeland College this weekend.
“We’ve been preparing for nationals for a year so we were ready to deal with the pressure of playing,” Carlyon said. “So we were just happy to go out there and have fun and do the best that we could.”
On Thursday night, the Rustlers beat the Humber Hawks and followed with another victory against the Eduoard Monpetit Lynx team on Friday night, which paved their way to finals.
After playing a series of “tense” games, the Rustlers battled the top-ranked team for gold last Saturday night.
“It’s pretty exciting to be second in Canada,” Desranleau’s mother Michelle Couette said. “The girls were very grateful and very humble.”
