The St. Mary Sharks were unable to make the finals on either side of the Joe Nestorovich Memorial Tournament, which was hosted at the Rotary Spirit Centre on Friday and Saturday.
A total of 14 teams took part in the event, including both boys and girls’ teams from St. Mary and the R.F. Staples JV squads.
The St. Mary boys had the best showing of all the local teams, finishing second in the round robin before losing out to Thorhild in the semifinals.
The boys opened the event by beating Neerlandia in two sets of 25-21 and 25-14.
They then lost in two sets against Onoway (17-25, 17-25) before going on to beat the R.F. Staples JV team 25-20 and 25-14.
On Saturday, they defeated Gerard Redmond in two sets (25-17, 25-18) and Thorhild in two (25-20 and 25-19). However, they split their final match against Thorsby (20-25, 25-12).
They were left with a record of 9-3 record, which put them in the semifinals. Unfortunately, they had trouble this time around with Thorhild and lost 25-19 and 25-21.
Coach Vance Nakonechny said he was really proud of the boys’ effort.
“I think in general we still need to work on the little things. With a little fine-tuning we’re very close to being a very good team,” he said.
“There’s a few little things to work on. Sometimes it’s just the little things that count. We have to pay a little more attention to the details.”
When asked about highlights of the tournament, he said, “I think early on we had a really good match with Onoway and a good round robin match with Thorhild.”
Nakonechny said the boys play in a tournament at Thorhild starting on Friday, Nov. 1, and then enter the senior tournament at R.F. Staples on Nov. 15.
The girls kicked off the tournament with two losses against Neerlandia (14-25, 12-25).
They then faced Onoway, who beat St. Mary handily in two, 17-25, 5-25. Their last match of the day was against the R.F. Staples JV team, whom they lost out to in two sets (12-25, 19-25).
Saturday proved a little kinder to the Sharks, as they started the day by facing Gerard Redmond, who they downed in two sets (25-16, 26-25).
Their next opponent was Thorhild, who they split against in two sets (22-25, 25-20).
Finally, the girls finished out with another 1-1 match versus Swan Hills (25-20, 20-25). Their 4-8 record did not qualify them for the playoffs.
Coach Carina Sturkenboom indicated the girls played very well in comparison to their first tournament, which ended in all losses. This time, they were able to split fifth place.
She noted they have only seven players on their roster, which can make things pretty hard in practices and tournaments like these.
“They did really good, all of them. They finally got the confidence that they can (compete) even with just seven players,” she said.
“Their passes were better, their serves were better, their blocks were really strong. There’s a lot of stuff they learned from when we first started the season until now, “ she added. “Sometimes I wish we had another month in the season.”
She said the team will travel to Morinville this Nov. 1-2 weekend. Zone playoffs will follow, though she wasn’t sure if the Sharks qualified for zones.
