It was a golden weekend for two of the four senior high volleyball teams in Westlock.
The R.F. Staples Thunderbirds senior girls volleyball squad came home with gold medals after a 14-team tournament hosted by the Hilltop Chargers in Whitecourt last weekend.
This gives the team a formidable winning streak at that particular tournament, since this is the third year in a row they’ve won the gold.
“Some of the girls have been on the team before and they knew that, so it was a pretty big deal for them to try to keep that tradition going,” coach Keith Szautner said.
The girls posted a strong performance throughout the weekend, coming out on top in their round-robin pool. They went on to beat Drayton Valley in two sets in the quarterfinals, then beat Hilltops two straight sets in the semi-finals.
They went on undefeated into the final match against Whitecourt’s St. Joseph Saints, and easily bested that opponent, as well.
“I don’t think we were ever in too much danger,” Szautner said. “We won the first set pretty handily against St. Jo’s 25-17. The second match was more of a fight, we beat them 27-25 after being down.”
The result was exactly what he said he was expecting, given the T-Birds were the strongest team at the tournament.
“It was a very good result. The girls definitely deserved it,” he said. “The result we got is exactly what should have happened, in my mind.”
The team’s strength continues to be their teamwork and defensive play, Szautner said, and what helped put them over the top last weekend was a focus on scoring.
“This weekend we were able to put a few more balls away; we’ve been working on that over the past couple weeks,” he said. “Overall we’re going in the right direction.”
The next action for the girls will be this weekend, when they head down to Spruce Grove for a tournament hosted by St. Thomas Aquinas, where Szautner expect to post another strong performance.
“Two years ago we lost in the finals and last year we lost in the semis, so if the history holds I would expect us to be in the playoffs for sure,” he said.
The St. Mary Sharks boys volleyball team came away from a weekend tournament with their first gold medal of the season after defeating Barrhead Composite in the finals.
The Sharks played at the Junior Varsity Invitational Tournament at Barrhead Composite High School last Saturday, where they competed against the junior teams from 3A schools as well as other 1A senior teams.
Sharks coach Vance Nakonechny said although the boys were tired after playing five games in the day, they were happy to have come out on top — especially since this was the first time the team played with a full roster.
“It was good to get everybody together and see what we have as an entire team. I think mentally they really pulled through together in the final,” he said.
The first match of the tournament, against Sturgeon Composite, proved to be one of the toughest. The Sharks won the first set 27-27, lost the second 22-25, and won the third 15-9.
“It was good to see that kind of intensity in the first match,” Nakonechny said. “We were down 23-19 so to come back, it was pretty good to see.”
The Sharks easily won their next three round-robin matches in two sets each, leaving them to face their last match against Barrhead.
“Both teams were undefeated, so it was kind of a meaningless round robin game since they just had the top two teams go to the final,” Nakonechny said.
Instead of playing the last round-robin game, the teams just played a best-of-five final match.
“It was kind of a neat concept, because that’s what they do at higher levels like in college,” he said. “Their regular season games are typically best of five.”
The Sharks won three straight, 25-22, 25-20 and 25-20 to win the tournament.
“Barrhead Comp. is a very skilled defensive team,” Nakonechny said. “In the end, the only difference is we were a little better in terms of attacking. Our hitters rose to the occasion.”
