Pembina North Community School (PNCS) is celebrating zone volleyball gold for both boys and girls junior high teams.
After placing second in the divisional tournaments the week prior, both teams won gold at the North Central 1J Zones Championships held Nov. 14 at the Rotary Spirit Centre — 1J schools are those with less than 35 students registered in Grade 9.
PNCS hosted the tournament which saw seven boys teams and 10 girls teams from Neerlandia, St. Mary, Red Water, Legal, Spruce Grove, Swan Hills, Boyle, Thorhild, Kinuso and Slave Lake.
This year has been a lot of hard work for both teams, said boys coach Mike Ivey.
“Our kids definitely deserved it and we’re proud of them. It’s nice to be rewarded for hard work. There’s some phenomenal athletes up north and it was nice for them.”
Both of the PNCS teams placed first in their pools and moved on to playoffs where they both won every set, claiming gold medals at the end of the day.
“We definitely knew we had strong squads going into the year,” said Ivey.
“Both squads were going in with a lot of Grade 9 players. We ended close the year before, with a bunch of silvers at the divisional and zone tournaments. We just kind of fell short.”
“It was nice for our guys to get a gold medal at zones because when you come that close, it kind of leaves you wanting a lot more. It was the same thing for the girls, they lost in the last set to Neerlandia, so it was nice to get gold the next weekend.”
Ivey credited the work of former R.F. Staples senior boys head coach Rick Sereda for helping the squads get on their game this year.
“He just knows volleyball so well and he ran a little volleyball program for our teams. He really knows his stuff and he got their passion up and helped a lot — that combined with some really good athletes we’ve developed over their junior high years.
With the end of the season now upon them, many of the Grade 9s are looking forward to competing at the senior high level next year.
Boys coach Jay MacIntyre, Christopher Pechanec, Sean Kaliel, Carson Boulerice, Rysten Tomlinson, Mark Gibson, Dylan MacIntyre, Adam Drake, Liam Jensen and coach Mike Ivey.
