The Paradise Hill boys' volleyball team won a bronze medal in the provincial championships held in Muenster recently.
Coached by teacher Shaun Spence and community coach Steven Trefiak, the young team rebounded from a less than spectacular 2010 season to firmly re-establish their team's reputation over the course of what player Riley Macnab described as "a good season that ended on a great note."
"We started practicing in early September," said coach Spence, "and we set a goal to make provincials. We're a young team - last year a lot of our starters were Grade 10 students. This year we carried 14 players and entered a lot of tournaments, with the intention of building the depth and the experience that we'd need to accomplish that goal."
The Panthers got off to a good start, winning the first tournament they entered in Biggar. Following that initial success they played well, making few finals and semi-finals.
"The season was about acquiring technique and learning a level of comfort on the court," said Spence, "and there were some lessons learned along the way. Comfort on the court means knowing how to adapt to what comes at you, and learning how to deal with the momentum swings that are so much a part of the game. After the season ended we reassessed our goal of making provincials in an open forum and the boys agreed that it was still a reasonable objective."
"Everyone worked hard, practised hard and took it seriously," noted player Bryce Kaltenborn.
The post-season road to the provincial championships requires a team advance through conference and regional play downs. The North Regional Conference was held in Pierceland and the team from the Hill won all three of their matches, beating hosts Pierceland in the final.
"The boys lost the first game," said Spence, " but came back to win the next two in a great match against a very strong team."
At the North Regional Championship in Maymont a log jam in the standings was resolved when the team lost to Maymont in an extremely close match, thereby finishing second overall (despite being tied with Pierceland at two wins and two losses).
"It was very close," Spence commented. "It wasn't the way we hoped that regionals would end. In the bus on the way home after the tournament we reassessed our goals, knowing that with the second place finish we were on our way to the provincials. The boys felt that making a medal round - any medal round - was realistic, so with that in mind we spent the week preparing."
Ten teams travelled to Muenster for the 2A Provincial Championships. Season rivals Pierceland and Maymont found themselves in pool A, while Paradise Hill was in pool B along with perennial volleyball powerhouse Leader, Arcola, Hepburn and the host team Muenster
"We played Muenster first," said Spence, " and despite a lot of jitters we won in two straight. That was followed immediately by two straight losses to Leader, and the boys were down for a while. The last match of the evening was against Hepburn. It was one of the most intense matches of the entire tournament, and also the loudest - in a time-out I couldn't hear my own voice as I tried to talk to the boys. We lost the first game and came back to win the next two, but we had to work for every single point."
Finishing the first day with a 2-1 record meant that the team was close to their goal of making a medal round. After beating Arcola two games straight to finish second in their pool, they noted their opponent in the quarterfinals would be Maymont - the team that had beaten them in Regionals. Two very closely fought victories later and the team advanced to the medal round.
Season lesson No. 1, Riley Macnab: "No matter how many times you get beaten you can always come back and win against the team that just beat you."
"Coach Trefiak emphasized in the pre-game talk the need for the boys to bring their best game to the court," said Spence, "but in our first match against Cabri we found ourselves up against a very experienced team. They played very well technically, had a superb defence and, in the end, were just too strong, and we lost in two. This meant that we were into the bronze medal game and had 30 minutes to get over the letdown that came with the loss."
Their opponent for the bronze medal was Leader, the team that had beaten them in pool play. This same team had just been defeated themselves by the eventual gold medalists Waldheim.
"We talked to the boys about going home with a medal," said Spence, " and about how any medal was worthwhile, but mainly we emphasized that it's a matter of which team recovers best from a defeat, gets up and pushes back. The first game was hard - an 'earn-every-point-the-hard-way' kind of grudge match. We hadn't forgotten losing to them and the boys won the first game 28-26. Then in the second they came back hard against us and although we started even we soon found ourselves about seven points back. And we called a timeout."
Season lesson No. 2, Bryce Kaltenborn "No matter how many points you're down you stay positive!"
"Steve told the boys the things they needed to know, and they went out and clawed their way back from the brink in a series of long rallies."
Season lesson No. 3, Travis Hofer: "Never give up!"
Travis commented on how important the support from the players on the bench was during the critical minutes. "The guys on the bench sure knew how to make us smile on the court. They were always cheering loudly, doing funny things and making us laugh."
"I had to serve the final point," said Macnab. "I just stood there, took a deep breath and just kind of thought about where I needed to place the ball, and what I needed to do. I took a long second and it was like everything was in super slow motion, then I served it and he shanked it to the side and they couldn't get the pass up and we won."
" and the boys went nuts," said Spence, smiling the kind of smile that doesn't go away easily.
