St. Mary School’s senior boys volleyball team took a bite out of their competition over the weekend, bringing home a silver medal as they head into zones.
The Sharks finished second at Thorhild’s weekend volleyball tournament, which gave them a taste of what zones will be like, pitting them against a handful of clubs they will face.
“Some of the teams were weaker, some were very strong. We got to see a lot of the teams in our zone that we’ll be competing against in a couple of weeks,” said coach Vance Nakonechny, adding the team hasn’t had much experience to date playing teams in its zone.
“I would think we’d be one of the favourites in zones. There (are) a couple of teams that are also very strong. It kind of comes down to who’s playing their best on that particular day,” he said.
Over the weekend, the Sharks played with intensity and suffered a loss to only one team at the 10-club event — Whitecourt’s St. Joseph School.
“We got off to a sluggish start, but they just got better as the day went on,” Nakonechny said. “As the games became more important, we raised our level of intensity. We were a lot better defensively on the court and our attack was very solid.”
In the round robin, the Sharks had a 3-1 record, winning each match in two sets. The only loss was against St. Joseph School — 25-11 and 25-22.
This record put them second in their pool. In the quarterfinals they beat Redwater School 25-12 and 25-17. The semi-final match up against Immanuel Christian School saw the Sharks win 25-18, lose 21-25 and win the third 15-9 to progress to the finals.
Once again, the team paired up with St. Joseph School, where they took the first set 25-21, but lost the remaining sets 25-2 and 15-11.
“The St. Joe’s team was a very good team,” he said, adding they are a 2A team. “They’re probably one of the favourites in the zones to advance to provincials so the final match was excellent, from both sides.”
Over the next two weeks in preparation for zones, Nakonechny said the team will be focusing on developing consistent serving to ensure there are no point giveaways.
“Our offence is tremendous when we pass well,” he said. “It all kind of stems from defence — when we play good defence and move our feet, we have a very good centre and very good hitting game.”
The top six teams in the region will face one another at the zones at St. Mary School on Nov. 19. The winner moves on to provincials. Last year the Sharks finished second at the 1A provincial championships.
