The EPC Predators finished in the No. 1 spot during their two-day EPC tournament held in Athabasca, defeating St. Jerome’s School in two straight sets in the Saturday-night final.
“It’s very nice of course,” said Chad LeMessurier, head coach of the Predators. “It’s only our second tournament so we tempered that excitement a bit. With all of our starters back we had some pretty high expectations of ourselves, so this is just one step for the rest of the year.”
The Predators didn’t lose a single set throughout the entire event, shutting down every team that faced.
This was a rare feat that LeMessurier was quite happy with.
““I was really happy with the overall result and how they were able to complete sets and finish them out without too big a hiccup.”
The boys were on top of their game in their first set maintaining a two-point lead throughout. With a lot of excellent saves, blocks and spikes, the Predators were able to finish the first set 25-18.
They really turned it up a notch at in the second set, with tighter set ups, better defensive play and maybe a few more mistakes on St. Jerome’s side, the Predators walked over them with a dominate 25-10 win.
It was a great way to cap off the weekend.
LeMessurier is very happy with the way that his team performed, but he’s not letting this one tournament win go to his head.
The coach recognizes that there is always need for improvement, but will be using this win to reinforce the concept of how hard work can pay off.
“I think this weekend was important to us because it reinforced how important it is to go to practice,” he said.
“The last few weeks have been very important and very business like in the gym. There still things we need to work on it seems every match we had one little span where there would be two or three errors we would make.
“That’s going to happen after all we are dealing with teenagers, but our goal is to become as technically perfect as we can.”
The two-day tournament featured senior girls teams as well.
The Boyle School Huskies represented fairly well, with a semifinal finish — the Huskies eliminated the EPC Predators in the quarterfinals to advance, however the Huskies couldn’t make it to the final losing to Lac La Biche.
