The St. Albert Physical Education Council final between the Lorne Akins Gators and Richard S. Fowler Falcons went down to the wire before a winner was declared.
Fowler was one point away from celebrating its first city championship in boys’ volleyball before the Gators came through in the clutch in Thursday’s Tier I final at Bellerose Composite High School.
The 25-11, 20-25, 22-25, 25-14, 17-15 thriller also results in a record 16th SAPEC banner for the Gators in school history.
“It’s awesome. Our school is probably number one by far in St. Albert and this is just another one to add to the lead,” said co-captain Rhees Moss of the Gators, 11-0 (33 GW/6 GL) in league play and 29-4 overall after going 9-2 (30 GW/10 GL) as last year’s finalists.
Fowler’s record of 8-3 (28 GW/11 GL) includes the 25-21, 23-25, 24-26, 22-25 loss to the Gators in the regular season.
“We had the best game of our season. Our goal throughout the entire season was to play our best game in our last game,” said Fowler co-captain Max Hartman of the titanic tug-of-war with the Gators. “It was close all throughout the match. It was a hard-fought battle by both teams.”
Moss agreed. “It was a pretty good game. It was almost identical to the 2017 one we lost (25-13, 15-25, 21-25, 25-15, 14-16 to the William D. Cuts Crusaders),” said the Grade 9 setter. “Our team played super good in the first set and not so great for the next two. We played awesome in the fourth set and carried the momentum into the last set and won.
“We pulled through by passing pretty good, we were setting good and our hitting was really good.”
The Gators rose to the challenge after dropping two sets in a row following a fast and furious start to the final.
“When it was 2-1 we were feeling the pressure, but we regained focus and came back and just hammered it,” said Emmett Neuls, a Grade 9 physical presence pounding the ball with authority as the Gators’ recipient of the St. Albert Sturgeon Volleyball Association player of the game award.
Hartman, a Grade 9 tower of power, was named Fowler’s player of the game.
A strong mix of Gators took turns piling up the points in the first set with Neuls, Moss, Mitchell Carbone and Nate Anderson doing most of the damage while building up leads of 9-1, 14-5, and 19-7.
Fowler recovered with more drive and determination as Hartman and Stefano Marano, the team’s main attackers, started banging the ball with purpose.
“We felt a little bit of pressure at the start but then it went away and we were rolling,” Hartman said. “We just said forget about that one and move to the next one and play a better game and we did. Our passing and hitting was really good and so was our hitting.”
The second set was tight with the teams trading points at a frantic pace. Marano’s point off a block tied it at 20 and Hartman’s tap over two blockers made it 22-20. The last two points in the set were serves by Marano that handcuffed the Gators.
Down 13-7 in the third set, the Gators gained some traction with contributions from Neuls and Fowler miscues for points to eventually lead 16-15. The Gators continued to stay at least a point ahead of Fowler – 19-18 with the ace by Neuls and 20-19 on Brady Cooke’s sizzler down the line – until Fowler strung three points together.
The tide turned after Anderson punched the ball into the floor in front of the back line to knot it at 22 as Fowler pulled off two defensive gems for points and the second was Hartman salting the ball away after a great dig by Neuls presented the ball to the heavy hitter to convert at 24-22.
In the fourth set, Neuls grabbed the match by the throat with hit after hit after hit.
“The turning point was when Emmett Neuls started pounding the ball,” said Hartman, 14.
“Emmett got some super nice kills and our team got pumped up,” added Moss, 14.
Neuls, 14, was locked and loaded every time he touched the ball with the Gators scrambling to overtake Fowler at the finish line.
“I was swinging pretty hard I thought. I was just super hyper and energetic so that was kind of what it stemmed from,” said the third-year Gator, who was following orders from head coach Moritz Schmidt. “Coach said we’ve got to swing the ball because we’re not swinging it enough.”
The fifth and deciding set was 8-6 Gators when the team switched sides as Neuls, Carbone and Anderson dented the floor with spikes.
The Gators looked to be in good shape up 10-8 on a boomer by Moss and everything was coming up Milhouse at 13-9 as Carbone and Cooke combined to shut the door at the net when Fowler tried to return a serve by Moss.
After a serve out of bounds put Fowler on the brink of elimination trailing 14-11, a serve went in favour of the Falcons, followed by Marano’s point off a block and a serve by Tanner Gomes that caught the Gators off guard.
However, leading 15-14 Fowler was unable to nail down the championship-clinching point on the next serve and the Gators were quick to capitalize with Anderson tattooing the ball for the 16th point and Neuls pumped a shot off a block to seal the deal.
“It was amazing,” said Neuls, who joins his older brothers, Conlan and Bryce, as Gators’ volleyball champions. “I was here in Grade 7 and we won (in four sets against Fowler) and last year I was here in Grade 8 and we lost in five sets so it feels really great to win it in five this year.”
The difference between losing the 2017 final and winning this year for the Gators with three returnees in the lineup was, “Harder work in practice. Great guys this year, just like last year, but we just worked a lot harder,” Neuls said.
