After winning the wildcard slot at the AA Provincials the girls trekked to Nanaimo, BC, last weekend. Coach Chris Ruse gives us the play-by-play:
An Outstanding First Day
An outstanding first day for the girls. We went in ranked last in our pool but managed to beat both St. Pats and Brentwood to take 2nd place. We are still waiting for confirmation of who we play tomorrow but we should reach our goal of top 8. If we win tomorrow there is a good chance that we will draw Elphinstone, the number one team in the tournament.
Tigers reach top 8!
Holy smokes! What a match. The girls came out nervous and flat against a strong Lambrick Park team. We went down 8-1 (maybe 9-1) and were in a huge hole. They fought hard and ended up losing 25-20. We regrouped and came out strong in the second, winning convincingly 25-18. We then won the third 25-20, playing well. The fourth saw Lambrick come out swinging and we were again down by 10 to start. We fought hard and lost the game 25-17.
The fifth game is a short one and generally the team that wins the first few points takes it because of the momentum they gain. We went down 4-0 but managed to start up and little by little chipped away until it was 7-6 for them. They earned the 8th point and the teams switched sides with our hopes for a spot in the quarters in limbo. Lambrick earned the next point and it was 9-6 and we were close to giving up. Instead, the girls started to fight and eventually got to 10-10.
Caitlin P. then stepped up and had some huge clutch serves to get us to 12-10 and Lambrick then earned the point. They served at 12-11 for us and got to 12-12. We managed to earn the next to get to 13-12. We then fought hard and earned the 14-12 point. They again managed to fight back and we were at 14-13 with one of Lambrick’s better servers serving us.
We were nervous and tight and our pass was awful but, we managed to scramble and get the ball back to them. They then tipped (threw) the ball back to us and we scrambled back to them. This kept going back and forth with both teams nervous. Eventually a free ball came over and Randall was able to set Siobhan a gorgeous right side set. The other team was thinking – “oh no no no” (literally, two girls were heard saying this as the set went up). Siobhan jumped and swung, as she had all match, as scored a gorgeous kill to put us into the top 8!
I can’t say enough about the fight and heart that these girls have shown thus far. We are now the top school from our league in the Provincials and they have represented the school with amazing dedication and heart. We are now going up against the top team here (Elphinstone) which will be a very, very difficult game. Whatever happens, we can be very proud of the girls.
Ouch! Another Update
The girls just finished getting trounced by Elphinstone in the round of 8. While we had moments of brilliance, we were just not up to the challenge of playing what is, quite frankly, a much more experienced team. We lost in 3 straight and will play tomorrow morning at 10:15 for a chance to play for 5th place. All the matches from here on in will be tough with a lot of high quality volleyball being played. Stay tuned…
Tigers Place 8th
They girls lost their first set this morning against a strong Langley Fundamental team. They then proceeded to demolish them in the second to bring about a tie-breaking 3rd. We were down a few points and fighting hard to get back into the match when Randall dove for a ball, with a huge amount of passion I must add, and managed to crack her nose and scaring us all (not to be worried – she’s fine!). Unfortunately, while we were able to push a little, we ended up losing 15-13.
We then played College Heights (from PG) and while we should have taken them down soundly, we again struggled to find our form in the first. We lost the first but came back to win the second game with gusto. However, the third did not go our way as we started 8-0 down! We managed to fight back and earned a respectable 15-11 (maybe 12) loss.
Overall I really can’t say enough about these girls. Coaches, parents, and university scouts were coming to talk to me to congratulate me on the success of the team and to say how impressed they were. The caliber of this provincials is apparently higher than anyone can remember and for a young team that won one match last year to go from 14th spot in the tournament to 8th is impressive. Our goal for next year will be much higher, but first we get some time off to reflect on a successful season.
Thank you again to ALL of you for the support you’ve given the girls over the past few months. They appreciate it immensely, as do I.
Get the full Volleyball results here.