Westlock’s gold reserve has increased after the R.F. Staples junior high boys ruled the North Central Junior High Athletic Association (NCJHAA) Zone 4J Volleyball Championships.
Hosted at R.F. Staples Nov. 17, the boys downed Morinville to claim the top prize at the six-team tourney.
“We played very, very well, start from finish, all weekend,” said boys head coach Dean Fagnan. “We pretty well dominated the tournament.”
He added that the boys had overcome a number of technical struggles to get to the podium.
“We’re a very big team, but we haven’t passed very well all year,” noted Fagnan. “We’ve struggled on being able to use our height to attack. But the kids have been working very hard at passing during practice, and it really showed off yesterday. We passed quite well and attacked lots.”
Overall, Fagnan thought that the T-Birds couldn’t have asked for a better season.
“We finished second in three tournaments,” he said. “Finally we were able to play right to the end and got the gold medal on a zone weekend. It was very well deserved.”
Meanwhile, at the Rotary Spirit Centre, the girls battled it out against nine other opponents before losing in the quarterfinals.
“There were lots of games that went to three sets,” said girls head coach Leanne Huppertz. “That always means that there was very good competition. Sadly, we lost out in the quarterfinal to Hinton, who ended up winning bronze. They were strong team and they kept hitting the holes and anything we tried to hit at them they dug up.”
Hilltop School eventually took the gold medal on the girls side. Teams travelled from as far as Hinton, Athabasca and Onoway to battle it out.
While both tournaments were technically one and the same, the two separate locations were chosen because of logistics.
“We had so many teams that we decided that we would just leave the girls at the Spirit Centre and the guys at the high school to try and get the 18 teams through in one day,” added Huppertz. “We needed more gym space.”
Both coaches added that regardless of how the season ended, they were very happy to see how their teams competed.
“We were sad to be out at the quarterfinal,” said Huppertz. “They really worked hard and they’ve come together as a team as the team progressed through the year. They had some amazing rallies today, digging up balls, hitting them down. At zones you get some higher-level teams, so you’re going to see a lot more competition. They really came together, I’m happy with that.”
