The St. Mary Sharks weren’t perfect, but the girls managed to score a bronze medal, while the boys earned a spot in the semifinals, but lost out to finish fourth
Sixteen teams from eight schools converged on the Rotary Spirit Centre Fieldhouse Oct. 25-26 for the Joe Nestorovich Memorial Volleyball Tournament hosted annually by St. Mary School in honour of a longtime employee of the school and biggest sports fan.
For the girls, the tourney didn’t start great. They finished third in their pool after losing to the R.F. Staples JV T-Birds in three sets (25-14, 24-26, 13-15), and to Anzac in straight sets (21-25, 22-25), snagging one victory against Gerard Redmond (25-18, 25-23).
“We turned it around the second day,” said coach Ty Snell about their final round robin victory.
They went on to win the quarterfinal against Thorhild, but Anzac took the semifinal game forcing the St. Mary girls into the bronze medal match which they took from Neerlandia’s Covenant Canadian Reformed School in two sets.
Next weekend, they’ll head to Boyle for a tournament and after a weekend off they return to host zones Nov. 16.
“We’re very hopeful for both. We have a great team this year, when everybody’s on the same page and things are clicking so we’re very hopeful for zones this year and the provincial burn,” said Snell.
It was an opposite effect for the boys, who finished first in their round robin, beating the JV T-Birds 25-16 and 25-21, Anzac 25-13 and 25-19 and Gerard Redmond 25-14 and 25-15.
Although they made it to the bronze medal game, they lost to the T-Birds.
“We had an excellent first day. We didn’t communicate on the court as well the second day and small mistakes caught up with us,” said coach Vance Nakonechny.
The boys also have one more tournament in Thorhild before hosting zones.
“Attention to detail will result in better performance moving forward. Our challenge is to play well consistently, not only for portions of matches,” he added.
