There was one championship win repeat and two early exits for three local teams at Edwin Parr Composite School’s (EPC) Invitational Volleyball tournament Sept. 23-24.
A total of nine senior boys’ teams and 12 senior girls’ teams from around Alberta took to the courts at EPC and the Athabasca Regional Multiplex. EPC was represented by their two senior teams, and Boyle School by their senior girls.
Title defenders
The EPC Predators senior boys successfully held their championship title, undefeated in six straight games. The team even managed win every set during their tournament play, a feat that made head coach Sean Morrison particularly happy.
“I fully expected to be in the final, and from there it’s just who is playing the best at the time,” he said. “And it worked out exactly as we planned.”
The boys were coming off of a reasonably successful 20-team tournament the week before. With home team confidence, the Predators breezed through the preliminary round robin, finishing first overall and earning a bye into the semifinals.
Morrison said the matchup against the Westwood Community High School Trojans was the most challenging match. The Predators won both sets by two points, 25-23 and 27-25, which would end up being their closest tournament sets.
“It was tight, but we had a couple points in that ended up swinging in our favour,” he said.
After their nail-biting game, the Predators were right where they expected to be in the championship game against the École Plamondon Hawks. The Predators remained consistent during the two sets, taking the win 25-17 and 25-17.
“Everybody did well and everyone performed well,” Morrison said. “It was good. It was a good motivating tournament for us.”
Small school, big push
The Boyle School senior girls’ Huskies squad had a respectable finish after a semifinal elimination against the Westwood Trojans, who won the tournament.
Although they won a tournament in Thorhild the previous week, the Huskies were almost considered the underdogs, being a 1A division school up against mostly 3A teams.
“We were a little heartbroken at the end there, but we’re still happy with where we finished,” said Huskies head coach Sheri Bencharsky. “It’s fun to go to, to get good experience and see what other competition is out there.”
The Huskies took a big bite out of their round robin pool, going undefeated and taking the top spot, putting them right into the semifinals.
However, the five-game streak came to an end as the Huskies lost to the Trojans in two straight sets, 25-17 and 25-16.
“Made a list of things that we need to work on,” Bencharsky said.
“I said to them earlier, ‘You did more than I expected,’ and they were like, ‘Well that’s mean,’” she said while laughing. “It wasn’t meant to be mean, but I was just really proud of what they’ve done.”
EPC building blocks
EPC’s senior girls will be writing off their tournament performance as a learning experience after failing to win a game.
Head coach Braidy Borris said half of her team are first-year players, and to make things more difficult it was their “first touch on the court” this season.
“They fought to do their best,” she said. “If it had been later in the season when we met those teams, we could have had a different outcome.”
Although the team came away winning only one set, Borris said she portions where the team played together, moving as a unit with nice flow.
“If we can get that in every set, every game, we’ll be looking good for the season,” she said.
