In recent years, the Potential Volleyball Club has managed to find success as the season went on.
Last weekend, though, saw the club's 15U girls do something which hasn't been done before.
The girls made the trip to Edmonton for Alberta Volleyball 15U Premier Tournament 1 and ended up with a 12th place finish. It may not seem like a big deal to some but it's the first time a team from the club has finished so high in the first Premier tournament of the season, according to head coach Paul Shearme.
“It wasn't a seeded tournament but a tournament used to determine seeding for the next Premier tournaments,” he said. “It was a solid showing against some real solid teams.”
Like with any Premier tournament, the round-robin was up first for the girls and they were in Pool H against the Park Panthers from Sherwood Park, Alta., the PRVC Revolution of Peace River, Alta., and the SAS Club from St. Albert, Alta. The Potential Club ended up beating the Panthers and SAS but lost to the Revolution in three sets.
“We couldn't easily been 3-0,” said Shearme. “We came out gangbusters in the first set against the Revolution but just couldn't hold it.”
Potential finished in a three-way tie for first place after the round-robin, meaning tiebreakers were used to see who would finish where. The first tiebreaker, head-to-head, was rendered useless as all three teams – Potential, the Panthers and the Revolution – all beat other in the round-robin. That meant going to the sets for/against between the three teams was next, which put Potential in second place.
Shearme said the first goal was the finish first or second in the round-robin, which they managed to do.
“Our pool play went really well,” he said. “The girls were making good decisions on the court and there weren't a lot of errors, which was a bit of a surprise. The unknown with a division like this is the younger players can be inconsistent but there wasn't any big issue with the execution, which was good to see.”
Because of their second place result, the girls went into the playoffs in the top half of the draw with a shot to win the championship. Their round-of-16 match-up was against the SPVC Blizzard from Grande Prairie, Alta., which ended in a loss, meaning the best the girls could do from that point was ninth place.
Next up for Potential was the FOG Volleyball Club out of Edmonton and that was a victorious venture. The Wolves Volleyball Club from Grande Prairie was next but that ended in defeat, putting the girls into the 11th place game against the Dynamite Club out of Dawson Creek, B.C.
Shearme said the girls battled hard but it wasn't meant to be as they ended up losing.
“They just ran out of gas down the stretch but it was a great finish as far as I'm concerned,” he said. “We've never had a top-half finish in the first Premier tournament of the season from any team. There's been medals in Premier tournaments later in the year but this was the first time we had a team with a chance to win it in Premier 1.”
Shearme was also proud of the performances from some of his workhorses.
“Mali Straker played probably the best volleyball I've ever seen her play and Emily Carroll had an outstanding weekend,” he said.