After an impressive showing at the R.F. Staples home tournament at the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre last weekend, the senior girls volleyball team walked away with a silver medal.
Coach Keither Szautner said that while a gold medal is always preferable, finishing with silver is nothing to be too upset about.
“It’s the second year in a row we’ve done that — lost in the finals,” he said. “Whitecourt definitely played better than we did, so they deserved it.”
The girls struggled in the final against Whitecourt’s Hilltop Chargers, dropping the match in two games by margins of 25-18 and 25-19.
The girls finished the round-robin in second place, winning 11 of their 14 games, putting them up against Rocky Mountain House in the semifinals, which the Thunderbirds won in two games with scores of 27-26 and 25-19.
“I was thinking if we played like that we’d stand a really good chance of winning the tournament, but we didn’t play like that,” he said.
“We didn’t play as well defensively, whether because we weren’t ready or the other team put some pressure on us.”
Despite walking away without a gold-medal finish, Szautner said the tournament showed that the girls are able to compete with any of the other teams in the zone — something that was especially apparent in the semifinal match.
“It showed a lot of the heart and the mental toughness we’ve been working on,” he said. “And they didn’t quit in the final, either. They were both really good games.”
Looking forward, Szautner said the girls are setting their sights on the zones tournament which will be hosted at R.F. Staples — the St. Mary boys are hosting zones at the Spirit Centre.
“Whitecourt just proved they’re going to be really tough competition, and unfortunately only one team from our zones goes (to provincials),” he said. “We’ve really got our work cut out for us.”
In the meantime, the girls will head to Camrose this weekend for their last regular-season tournament.
