The St. Albert Skyhawks travelled a longer road to provincials than last year’s championship journey in high school women’s volleyball.
The Skyhawks were forced to win their way into this weekend’s 3A tournament in Camrose after qualifying last year as the metro Edmonton league finalists.
“It’s definitely been a different road,” said libero Olivia Brassard, after the Skyhawks finished undefeated at the 3A metro Edmonton zones last weekend for the provincial berth.
“Last year we got that bye because we were in the division one final, so this year when we lost in our quarter-finals we said OK we’ve got to work our way back to having that chance to win it again and we did.”
The 2016 Skyhawks are comprised of two Grade 10s, four Grade 11s and six Grade 12s.
A handful of players are also back from the 44-4 Skyhawks in league, tournaments and provincials, where they dropped only two sets in seven best-of-three matches to capture the championship banner.
“It was different team dynamics this year. Last year we had a lot more Grade 12s so there was more experience. This year was more like maturation,” said captain Kacey Jost. “This year we had fresher athletes, really raw athletes, so we had to work a lot harder to refine our skills and work together as a team whereas last year I think since we had so many Grade 12s there was a lot more of us used to the feels of volleyball and the pace of high school volleyball.
“This year it was just us putting in as much work and effort to get there.”
Brassard agreed.
“Last year we had a lot of volleyball players and this year we have a little bit more of athleticism and not as many volleyball players but we’re still a strong team. When we want to play and when we want to compete we can definitely compete,” said the Grade 12 Skyhawk.
The fourth consecutive trip to provincials for the St. Albert Catholic High School women's team was finalized in Saturday’s two-set zone victory over the Ardrossan Bisons at the SkyDome.
“We were able to maintain kind of our rep as a team that works hard and pushes to get to the places that we want to be,” Jost said. “We’re all really excited to go again.”
The Skyhawks put themselves in position to defend their championship after rebounding from a surprising 20-25, 21-25, 25-13, 15-25 loss on their home floor to the Bev Facey Falcons in the division one quarter-finals Nov. 2.
“It kind of made us realize that if we wanted to work and if we wanted to get where we had hoped to when we first set our goals at the beginning of the season we were going to have to put in that much more effort. We can’t just sit back and expect to win things,” Jost said. “It just drove us to fight a little harder and I think our thirst for a win was higher after that because obviously a loss doesn’t feel so great.”
A positive attitude kept the Skyhawks together through thick and thin.
“We’re never down. We support each other a lot. We’re very understanding of each other. We’re never like, ‘You made that mistake,’” Brassard said.
As the season progressed, so did the Skyhawks.
“We had a lot of improvement. We started out in our first tournament (at the University of Alberta) and it was definitely not how we expected or wanted to play and then we slowly just started getting better and better as we went on,” Jost said. “Our development this year was really, really strong so that’s good.”
The Skyhawks head into provincials with records of 5-2 mark in league play after going 14-1 in 2015 and 5-0 at zones.
In tournament action, the Skyhawks won the Tri-Volley in Sherwood Park, lost the final of the 22nd annual Lions Western Canadian Challenge as the defending champions and was the top team in the B side at a Saskatoon competition.
At provincials, the Skyhawks are seeded ninth out of 12 teams as the second metro Edmonton reps and in pool A they will play the No. 1 St. Joseph Ceniahs of Grande Prairie, No. 4 Innisfail Cyclones, No. 5 Springbank Phoenix, No. 8 Barrhead Gryphons and the No. 12 W.R. Myers Rebels of Taber.
Pool B consists of the No. 2 Strathcona Christian Academy Eagles as the top metro Edmonton rep, No. 3 Lethbridge Collegiate Institute Clippers, No. 6 St. Paul Saints, No. 7 Bearspaw Christian Grizzlies of Calgary, No. 10 Peace Wapiti Academy Titans of Grande Prairie and the No. 11 Camrose Trojans.
Visit www.asaa.ca for the 3A provincial website.
Last year the Skyhawks swept St. Joseph in the final at Bonnyville for the first provincial volleyball gold medal for St. Albert Catholic High School since the 1972 provincial B championship women’s team.
The Skyhawks also won bronze in 2013 and placed fifth in 2014.
“It’s always a tough task when you go into provincials. There are always girls that you don’t see during league play and there is a lot of really strong teams so I don’t think you can underestimate anyone. You have to go in with the same mentality that you’re going to have to work for every ball because there are some big girls, there are some big hitters and there are some good diggers. We just have to expect more volume of well educated volleyball players,” said Jost, 16, a dynamic Grade 12 power hitter.
This year the Skyhawks are winless in tournament matches against St. Joseph at the University of Alberta and the WCC final, 20-25, 25-19, 15-10 at the SkyDome.
In the division one pre-season, the pool B Skyhawks fell to the pool A Eagles 25-13, 26-24, 23-25, 23-25, 4-15 Sept. 19.
The Eagles (5-2) went on to sweep the pool A Falcons (6-3) in the semifinals and lost the final in four sets to the pool B Edmonton Christian Lions (8-2).
Last weekend at zones, the Skyhawks were ranked No. 1 in the eight-team draw and in pool A swept the No. 7 Beaumont Bandits 25-15, 25-7, No. 3 St. Peter The Apostle Spartans 25-12, 25-18 and No. 5 Ardrossan 25-21, 27-25.
The playoff round against a pair of metro division two teams were victories of 25-21, 25-14 against the Spartans in the semifinals and 25-21, 25-23 against Ardrossan.
The first set against Ardrossan was knotted at 13 when the Skyhawks pulled ahead during a 7-3 point run. It was 22-20 when Jost ended a long rally with a big blast to the back corner.
The next set featured a bunch of points off hits by Kenzie Thera, including a defensive gem by Brassard for the Grade 10 Skyhawks to pound away to make it 14-10.
It was 19-18 when Lauren Cardinal put a paw on the ball that hit the top of the net and tumbled down for the 20th point.
Ardrossan rallied to tie it at 21 with a point off a block but the next serve hit the net as the Skyhawks regained the lead.
A net violation by Ardrossan put the Skyhawks back on top at 23-22 and on the next play Holly Vogel rejected a hit for the two-point advantage and the Skyhawks quickly sealed the deal.
“It wasn’t our best that we’ve played. I felt like Friday we played a little bit better (against Ardrossan) but we came back a couple of times and we just kept going,” said Brassard, 17.
