The Paul Kane Blues continued their tradition of excellence in high school women’s volleyball with a fourth-place finish at the 4A provincials.
The season to remember by the Blues included a sweet repeat as the Metro Edmonton Premier Conference champions.
The team’s overall record was 15-7, with 47 sets won and 23 sets lost in league play, playoffs, zones and provincials.
“We’re trying to build a culture that sticks around,” said head coach Stan Andronyk. “We’ve got a good thing going and we’re going to keep it going. We’re going to keep on working hard and be the best that we can be. It’s all about the players. They show up to play and they work hard.”
The Blues are losing eight players to graduation after the most successful campaign in Andronyk’s three-year tenure at Paul Kane.
After joining the Blues as an assistant coach in 2008 when they reached the premier final, Andronyk took over the bench duties and guided the team to three consecutive appearances at provincials, two premier pennants – including a perfect 11-0 record in 2009 — back-to-back victories at the Lions Western Canadian Challenge tournament and the only premier women’s volleyball championships in school history.
“The players that put those banners on the wall, it’s something for them to be proud of,” he said. “We’ve had quality girls and their parents have been extremely supportive of the team. It’s a great team atmosphere to be around.”
The Blues celebrated their return to provincials since the late 1980s by placing seventh in 2009 while going 18-4 overall. They finished eighth last year en route to a 13-9 mark.
In the provincial rankings this year the Blues were fourth as the second-highest Edmonton zone team.
“We pushed all year to be in the top four and you can tell by looking at the quality of teams at provincials that we were ranked properly,” Andronyk said.
At provincials the Blues played the Scona Lords, Centennial Coyotes of Calgary and the Western Canada Redmen in the top round-robin pool to determine the final seeding positions for the round of 16.
“We wanted that competition on the first day at provincials with the three top teams. We didn’t win a match, but we got ourselves going and we did a lot of good things that got us ready for the playoffs.”
The Blues qualified for Saturday’s medal round after knocking off the 13th-seeded Foothills Falcons of Okotoks 20-25, 25-21, 25-17, 27-25 and the eighth-seeded Harry Ainlay Titans 25-12, 25-18, 25-16 in the quarter-finals.
“We played awesome in both of our playoff games. Our players really showed up. They wanted to get it done and they did,” Andronyk said. “Our execution against Harry Ainlay in the quarter-final was excellent. That was a big game for us to win if we wanted a shot at a medal. They played excellent in their pool [3-0 record to earn the fifth seed in the round of 16] and we took it to them.”
In the medal round the Blues lost 25-16, 25-17, 26-24 to Scona, the host team at provincials and the No. 1 seed. In the bronze-medal match the Blues started strong before fading away against the Redmen 27-25, 25-11, 25-18.
“We played well against Scona, we just didn’t have enough,” Andronyk said. “The first set against Western was an incredible volleyball game. It was one of the best we’ve ever been a part of.”
