The Paul Kane Blues are seeded fourth at the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association 4A women’s volleyball championship.
The 16-team provincial draw starts Thursday at 1 p.m. at Strathcona Composite and Jasper Place high schools. Teams play in round-robin pools to determine their final seeding positions for the round of 16. The pools are set up in groups of four: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 and 13-16.
The Blues spike the ball at 1 p.m. against the Scona Lords, 5 p.m. against the Centennial Coyotes of Calgary and 6:30 p.m. against the Western Canada Redmen of Calgary at Strathcona.
The Blues are 0-4 against Scona, the top seed in the provincial rankings. Last week the Edmonton public league champions swept the Blues 25-15, 25-20, 25-17 to determine the first and second ranked Edmonton zone teams at provincials.
Centennial and Western Canada are seeded second and third, respectively.
The two-time reigning Metro Edmonton premier conference champions from Paul Kane are 13-2 overall, with 41 sets won and 10 sets lost in league play, playoffs and zones. The team’s highest finish in six tournaments was second place.
At last year’s provincials in Red Deer the Blues finished 2-5 for eighth place after placing seventh at 4-3 in 2009 at Lethbridge.
Rounding out the provincial draw are the Notre Dame Cougars (5th), Chinook Coyotes (6th), Bev Facey Falcons (7th) and Harry Ainlay Titans (8th) in pool 2, Catholic Central Cougars (9th), Bishop Grandin Ghosts (10th), Grande Prairie Totems (11th) and Hunting Hills Lightning (12th) in pool 3 and Foothills Falcons (13th), Ernest Manning Griffins (14th), Lloydminster Barons (15th) and Jasper Place Rebels (16th) in pool 4.
The round of 16 begins Friday morning and is single elimination.
Saturday’s medal finals are 5 p.m. for bronze and 7 p.m. for gold at Strathcona.
The provincial schedule is online at www.asaa.ca
Tournament passes are $15 for three days or $10 for two days. Day pass is $6 for adults and $3 for students.
The midget AAA Raiders and the midget AAA female Slash will represent the St. Albert Raiders Hockey Club at the 34th annual Mac’s tournament in Calgary during the Christmas break.
Both teams qualified based on their winning records this year.
The Raiders are 11-4-1 after splitting two road games last weekend. They beat the Calgary Royals 5-2 Friday to end a three-game losing streak and Saturday lost 4-1 to the Red Deer Rebels.
The Slash improved to 10-5-2 after whipping the Sherwood Park Fury 7-1 Sunday in St. Albert.
Last year at the Mac’s the Raiders finished 2-2 in pool play after going 0-3-1 the previous year. The Slash placed second in their pool at 3-1 as the defending champions.
