WESTLOCK – St. Mary School’s (SMS) senior volleyball teams battled to Top 4 finishes at their home showcase, the Joe Nestorovich Memorial Volleyball Tournament, Oct. 21-22.
Fourteen boys and girls teams, including the Sharks from SMS, packed the Rotary Spirit Centre (RSC) for the two-day event, with both clubs losing their semifinal matches to finish in a tie for third/fourth as no bronze-medal game was played.
The boys went 7-5 in the round robin before falling 21-25, 12-25 to the Living Waters Warriors from Spruce Grove in the semifinal.
Boys coach Vance Nakonechny called his young team “a very hard-working bunch” who have been learning and growing with each game this season. After a bit of a flat start on the tournament’s first day, the boys came out strong on Day 2 and had more success.
“At certain points we look like a tremendous team and at certain points we fall flat. That’s kind of a learning process and that’s part of the mental part of the game, to always think ahead to that next play,” said Nakonechny. “After you get some experience, you realize there’s going to be errors in the game, and you just have to move past that and look forward to the next point. They definitely showed some improvement. They’re getting better overall as they gain more experience.”
Despite some ups and downs early at the tournament, the senior girls went 6-6 during the round robin before bowing out 10-25, 12-25 to the eventual tournament champs, Neerlandia’s Covenant Canadian Reformed School Stingers.
“The Stingers were by far the strongest team that we’ve played this year, so we saw a little more offence that we haven’t typically seen,” said girls coach Jordyn Walker. “We didn’t play our best volleyball, but the girls managed to persevere through the mental ups and downs of volleyball, so considering that we ended up in the Top 4, we were quite happy with that. And what I was really proud of them for this weekend is that we got everybody on the team in and everybody contributed this weekend.”
Both clubs now have a handful of tournaments left to play before zones and provincials — this year SMS will be hosting the 1A boys zone tournament Nov. 18-19 at the RSC.
And as for this past weekend’s event, the Joe Nestorovich Memorial Volleyball Tournament is named after a former St. Mary School employee who was a strong supporter of athletics.
“He always enjoyed watching the students play and do their best. I think the action that we saw today on the courts would have been very pleasing to him,” added Nakonechny, who is also principal of SMS.
