The R.F. Staples senior girls volleyball team returned from a tournament in Spruce Grove without any medals, but gained some valuable experience.
The tournament had 25 teams, mostly from 4A schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C., with just a few 3A schools like R.F. Staples taking part.
Coach Keith Szautner said the tourney featured “some of the biggest schools in the province,” so a record of two wins and four losses is pretty impressive.
“I was proud of the girls. For the most part they played like they can,” he said. “I think it was really important for them to see that next level of play and see what’s out there.”
To make things tougher on the T-Birds, their round-robin pool included Centennial from Calgary, the team that ultimately took the gold medal, and Notre Dame from Red Deer, the bronze-medal winners.
Szautner said one of the highlights of the tournament was the first set the T-Birds played against Centennial.
“The first set against them was pretty close. We were tied at 18, but ended up losing 25-19,” he said. “The second set didn’t go quite as well; it was 25-9 in the second one.”
He added their match against Notre Dame was also quite competitive.
The T-Birds performance was solid for most of the tournament, Szautner said. There weren’t any glaring errors from the girls that cost them games; it was simply a matter of being out-classed.
“Sometimes you just take your medicine and keep doing what you do best: passing, defence and trying to get your hands on the ball,” he said.
Szautner said he believes the girls will be able to take the experience of playing against some top-notch teams from western Canada and bring it back to the 3A tournaments they will attend for the rest of the season.
“The goal is we go back and face teams our level and say, ‘They’re good, but after what we’ve seen, we can do fine,’” he said. “That’s kind of the goal and we’ll see how that works out.”
The girls will have a weekend off before they once again hit the court, this time at a Morinville tournament Oct. 22-23.
