The St. Albert Skyhawks are the No. 1 playoff seed in metro Edmonton division one women’s volleyball with a perfect record in league play.
The playoffs start Monday for the Skyhawks (12-0, 36 GW/10 GL) against the Memorial Marauders (6-6, 21 GW/22 GL) at the SkyDome but the start time was unavailable at press time.
The semifinals are Thursday and the final is 3 p.m. Saturday at Strathcona Composite High School.
The Skyhawks have never won a division one/premier banner in the metro league and the last volleyball championship for the senior women’s team was 2001 in the city conference.
A division one title would punch the Skyhawks’ ticket to the 3A provincials, Nov. 26 to 28 in Bonnyville.
If the Skyhawks are unsuccessful they will be ranked first in the eight-team 3A Edmonton zone tournament Nov. 20-21 to determine the two provincial reps.
The last two years the Skyhawks won their semifinal zone matches for provincial berths.
At provincials the Skyhawks were awarded silver in 2013 as the first women’s volleyball team at St. Albert Catholic High School to not only compete at provincials but to medal. Last year they placed fifth.
Co-captains Jamie Bain, a setter, and right-side Julia Donnelly are the only third-year Skyhawks on the team and they are among five returnees from last year.
The Skyhawks wrapped up league play by sweeping their last four best-of-five matches for six in total, including a 3-0 decision against Memorial on Oct. 26.
Doubles curling is on display this weekend at the Alberta Winter Games’ pre-event open bonspiel at the St. Albert Curling Club.
Sixteen mixed doubles teams from Zones 5 to 8 are competing for eight berths at the Feb. 13 to 17 competition in Medicine Hat.
The St. Albert teams in Zone 5 are Carmyn Penner/David Howes, Megan Berg/Nicolas Oake, Brennin Turner/Andrew McLeod and Julia Bakos/Nathan Molberg.
The bonspiel starts today at 10:30 a.m. and the A qualifiers are 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. and Sunday’s B qualifiers are 10 a.m.
The Alberta winter and summer games are for athletes 11 to 17 years old.
St. Albert swimmer Georgia Kidd is the first top-tier recruit by the University of Alberta since partnering with the Edmonton Keyano Swim Club.
The Grade 12 Paul Kane High School student will join the Pandas’ varsity swimming program for the 2016/17 season despite being pursued by other CIS schools.
The freestyle swimmer has posted some of the top times in her age group in Canada.
This year Kidd represented Alberta at the Western Canada Games, where she won multiple medals, and swam for Keyano at the Canada Swimming Trials and the Canadian Championships.
The former Olympian Swim Club member also competed with the Canadian youth national team in 2014 and at the 2013 Canada Games and the 2012 North American Challenge Cup.
Her Keyano coach is Derrick Schoof, who is also the U of A high performance coach.
