You know how you can tell a team is proud of what they've accomplished?
They're wearing the medals on the plane ride home.
That's what the Crush Volleyball Club's 15U girls squad did on their way home from Edmonton after scoring themselves a gold medal in Tier 3 at Volleyball Alberta's 15U Premier 1 tournament on Feb. 23. The young ladies defeated the Westlock Volleyball Club in straight sets to claim victory.
photo courtesy of Jeannie Mathison
Head coach Jeannie Mathison said her team played well all weekend long and did so with plenty of confidence.
“There weren't a lot of errors, especially in the playoffs,” she said. “Overall, they were very confident and no nerves.”
As this was the first Premier tournament of the season, each pool was seeded by the organizers with a rough idea as to how each team would fare. The Crush were placed in Pool K to kick things off on Feb. 22 with game one against the Northern Alberta Volleyball Club Griffins, which ended in a straight-set loss. The Peace River Volleyball Club was up next for the Crush, which ended in a three-set defeat.
“The girls played great in that one,” said Mathison. “We battled hard but we got down a bit in the tiebreaker because of some serving issues at the start.”
They turned it around in their final game versus the Lacombe Thunder as they won in straight sets to finish third in the pool and advance to the Tier 3 playoffs.
The run to the title began against the Fort Mac Thunder in the round-of-16, which they won to advance to the quarter-final and a date with the Sylvan Lake Volleyball Club. That went their way, leading to the semifinal against the Birch Hills Volleyball Club from Saskatchewan. They managed to overcome them in three sets and then move on to knock off Westlock in the final.
“The final really wasn't that close,” said Mathison. “The girls were getting serves in, they were passing the ball really well and they were setting up plays. There weren't a lot of mistakes.”
Some of the girls were playing in their fourth career tournament out of territory, she added, and that helped to contribute to the settled demeanour.
“They seemed excited to be playing so well and when you're winning, that takes the nerves away,” she said. “We got them thinking one point at a time and to make sure they believed they deserved to be where they were.”
The Arctic Winter Games next month means the ladies won't be making the trip to play in Premier 2 but they will be heading to Premier 3 in April, followed by the Volleyball Canada Nationals in Edmonton in May.