The Lorne Akins Gators aced Thursday’s final exam in junior high boys’ volleyball with honour marks.
The Gators swept the Sir George Simpson Voyageurs with three scores of 25-16 to win the St. Albert Physical Education Council Tier 1 city championship at Bellerose Composite High School.
The Gators were a perfect 10-0 (30 GW/4 GL) for a SAPEC-high 15th banner and the third since 2010.
“Today was our best all-around game by far. We were fired up,” said Grade 9 power Kyle Lund, the man of the match for the Gators.
It’s the second straight final in which the Gators swept Simpson. Last year’s Grade 9 roster of Gators also finished 10-0 (30 GW/3GL).
“We had to carry on that tradition,” Lund said. “We wanted to win it for our school.”
The Gators were expected to repeat and they delivered.
“There was a little pressure to bring it home again but we just went out there and tried our best,” said Grade 9 captain Davis Pratt. “It feels pretty good to get the 15th one.”
The Gators got off to a flying start in one of the quickest finals in SAPEC history. A 9-1 point run left Simpson trailing 13-6. Lund, Seth Van Berkel and Logan McCaffery, the tallest player on the floor at six-foot-one, dominated the net as the Gators closed out the opening set with a 7-1 scoring spree.
“We came out swinging in the first set. We were ready to go,” Pratt said. “We talked in the change room before the game and our coaches (Moritz Schmidt and Ken Bishop) told us to come out firing and we did that pretty well.”
The next set featured lengthy points runs with Lund and Pratt serving. McCaffery also rocked Simpson with booming blocks to make it 11-6 and then 12-6. The set ended with a 6-2 run, highlighted by Evan Todd’s block to make it 23-15 and a well-place strike by Lund increased the lead to 24-16.
The methodical, workmanlike performance continued in the third set with victory within reach.
“We imagined that it was a tight game and we didn’t want to let it go,” Pratt said.
It was 11-3 in a blink of an eye with Simpson wilting. Back-to-back points by the silky-smooth Davis was followed by Van Berkel tapping the ball down into the middle of the court to widen the gap to 15-7. A late serving surge by Lund sealed the deal.
Simpson (8-2, 25 GW/9 GL) was led by setter Pat Charrois, the team’s man of the match and one of five returning players on the roster, but he was unable to stop the Gators from piling up the points.
“We passed good. We hit good. It was all together pretty good,” said Lund, a jackhammer who pounded the ball with authority.
In the semifinals Simpson swept the William D. Cuts Crusaders (6-3, 19 GW/15 GL) and the Gators went the distance to tame the ESSMY Leopards (5-4, 22 GW/17 GL) in five sets.
“In the semifinal it took us a while to get going. The first two sets we were kind of getting into it but then we just found our pace and we won that game so we kind of carried that over into this game,” Davis said.
Lund, 14, said the Gators underestimated ESSMY.
“We had a blowout in our season game against ESSMY (25-18, 25-16, 25-16) so we weren’t ready,” he admitted.
It was a different story against Simpson in a rematch of last year’s 25-14, 25-11, 25-20 final.
“It was close in the season when we beat them (25-20, 29-27, 22-25, 25-19) so we were excited to play them,” Lund said.
The Gators went wire to wire undefeated for the second year in a row despite a brand-new roster of nine Grade 9s and one Grade 8 player.
“We all found our positions late in the year and we just practiced and brought it all together,” said Davis, 14, a versatile power and setter.
Visit www.stalbertgazette.com to view the Gators’ banner picture.
