Spartans off to provincial championship
Mario Prusina
Times Editor
The goal all year for the Strathmore Spartans senior girls volleyball team was to earn a berth in the 3A Provincial Championship.
Mission accomplished.
The Spartans claimed one of the two zone seeds with a solid weekend of volleyball at the 3A Zone Championship Nov. 19-20 at the Holy Trinity Academy in Okotoks.
After a grueling weekend of action, the Spartans took home a silver medal for their efforts and the coveted berth in the provincial tourney.
“We needed to play consistent – we knew we had it in us and we came and we executed,” said Spartans coach Louise Bleier. “We played fabulous volleyball all weekend. We took care of the ball and we did a lot of good things. We built on momentum and we stayed on an even keel.
“When you come out of this zone (with a provincial berth), it is a big deal. All 10 teams here have the opportunity to excel and win this.”
The Spartans finished the round robin with the third seed and faced off against Springbank in the quarterfinals. After splitting the first two matches, the Spartans were unstoppable in the third set, winning 15-10.
Immediately after, Strathmore took on a rested George McDougall squad that earned a bye to the semifinals. However, the Spartans used their momentum and snuck out a close two-match win, earning a shot in the finals and an automatic provincial berth.
“The key is consistency and not to panic,” said Bleier. “You can afford to lose a match in round robin, but you need to rebound and come and play your next match. We had the horses, we had the belief and we had their height … we had a lot of things going for us, but we still had to put it together though. This was not a given, not by any stretch of the imagination.
“Quite a few things come together and the irony is, if a few more things come together, we can hang a provincial banner in our gym.”
In the zone finals, Brooks was dominant from the opening serve, en route to a two-match win. According to Bleier, the Spartans were playing their fourth back-to-back game in six hours and just ran out of steam.
“I think, first of all, Brooks was ready for us,” said Bleier. “They were done playing their (semifinal) match 20 minutes ahead of us. Last year Brooks was in the same boat and they didn’t come out hard in the finals and lost. So this year, they’re going into it going ‘no way, not again. We’re going after the banner.’
“The second part of it is – we were going to provincial, that was our goal all season – (so we already accomplished our goal).”
The Spartans are now preparing for the Provincial Championship Nov. 25-27 at Holy Rosary High School in Lloydminster.
“We need to do the things that got us to the (zone) final in the first place,” said Bleier of the upcoming weekend. “It’s all basic skills – your serving, your passing, your talking, your positioning. When you do that, (other teams) have to make a great play to beat you. That is what we need to continue to do. When we do those things, we will have success.”