The R.F. Staples senior boys’ volleyball team nabbed silver medals at a tournament in Whitecourt this weekend, winning all their matches except for the championship final against Barrhead.
“It’s not the results we wanted in the final, but on the same note, they made it to the final,” said coach Steve McKenna. “They had one loss all weekend ... I think most coaches will take that.”
This is the second-straight weekend that R.F. Staples has won silver at a tournament, having finished second at a tournament in Spruce Grove on the Sept. 27-28 weekend.
A total of 16 teams took part in the tournament and were split into pools of four. McKenna said they played all their round robin matches on Friday, defeating the three teams in their pool, and finished first overall.
In playoff action on Saturday afternoon, they faced off with Glenmary School from Peace River in a crossover. Glenmary had finished second in the ‘C’ pool and R.F. Staples defeated them in two sets.
In the semi-final, the T-Birds went on to defeat Westwood Community High School from Fort McMurray in two sets.
However, they ran out of steam in the final against Barrhead, who downed the T-Birds in two straight sets.
“I think at the end of the day, nerves got the better of the boys,” said McKenna.
“Some of the things that we’ve been doing so right, we weren’t able to do. Some of the fundamentals of the game — the passing, the hitting — they seemed to lose that skill for the final.
“You make a couple of mistakes, you tend to tense up a little bit. It doesn’t make things better; it usually makes things worse. And it seemed to kind of go downhill from there,” he said.
The R.F. Staples team will be taking off the Thanksgiving weekend before resuming play on the Oct. 16-18 weekend, where they will be taking part in the Western Canadian Challenge at Morinville Community High School.
This 20th annual tournament runs over the course of three days and features a total of 32 teams, McKenna indicated.
“They get people coming from all over for the (event),” said McKenna. “It’s a large tournament and a lot of fun, so it should be a good time.”
