The R.F. Staples senior boys volleyball team came up just short of claiming the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic High School Tournament title.
At the Sept. 28-29 event in Spruce Grove, the T-Birds fell 0-2 to the Morinville Community High School Wolves in the Saturday-night final.
It’s the third time they’ve met this year and so far the Wolves have won all three.
“We’re actually missing two of our key players,” said coach Kyle Beattie. “So once those guys return and everyone’s injury-free I think we’ll be competitive. We weren’t disappointed at all.”
Beattie said there were a lot of positives for the T-Birds throughout the weekend.
“We passed really well and our middles were pretty unstoppable,” he said. “Our hitters attacked the ball pretty aggressively, so things worked pretty good.”
He said the team was going to get back to its basics and work on fundamentals before their next tournament.
“Our first game will be against Morinville again, so we’ll see how we do,” he said. “This is all just practice, what really counts is zones and provincials.”
Round robin finish for girls
The senior girls failed to make it out of the round robin and missed two key vets at the tournament.
“The kids really stepped up and commanded the play,” said coach Denise Boulerice.
“One thing we’ve been working on in practice is trying to down the ball so the other team has to work for their points. They started doing that this weekend and putting goals in matches.
“We’re trying to encourage them to hit the ball and see what happens. Playing safe has not been winning us a lot of matches, so let’s not worry about that and start being aggressive.”
Both teams have Thanksgiving weekend off before they’re back at it Oct. 12-13 in Barrhead.
Boulerice said the girls need to work on being more consistent with their passing and serving, but saw the upcoming tournament as a good warm up for the zone finals which will be hosted by Barrhead in November.
“We’re either hot or cold, so we need to tighten that up,” she said. “This next tournament is a great opportunity to see some of our zone rivals and start making plans for the Nov. 16-17 tournament.”
