Offering a helping hand

Aryssah Stankevitsch     

Times Reporter   

 

Grade 9 Holy Cross student Carter Tongs does more than captain the junior varsity volleyball team. Tongs assists in the Strathmore community whenever he can.

Every year, he volunteers during Heritage Days, and at the Hope Community Church with their House of the Christmas Mouse event. 

“This thing at our church, it’s a day where you take a whole bunch of kids and babysit them,” Tongs said. “ You go around to a bunch of stations with them. They had a bouncy castle and carnival games.”

Tongs also makes time to play club volleyball in Calgary.

“It’s U15, and it’s the Alberta Volleyball Association. So he plays with the Alberta league, and then they go to provincials, and nationals,” Carter’s mother, Corinne said.

Tongs, she mentioned, has wanted to play volleyball since he was three-years-old, after first seeing the sport.

“It was just sort of a given that he would play volleyball,” Corinne said. “He’s a setter, he played school and club last year. We’ve seen him develop and definitely get a lot better, just with more coaching and more skill.” 

Though he used to play lacrosse with the Strathmore Venom, volleyball has taken over his free time. Tongs plays three nights a week in Calgary, and even completes his homework on the way into the city, to maintain his honour-student status. He wishes to keep up with volleyball as his education continues, even into post-secondary.

“I think I would like to, yeah,” he said. “I kind of want to take physics.”

“He’s always talked about becoming a teacher,” Corinne said, and joked about coming back to teach at Holy Cross.

“Or somewhere warmer,” Carter said.

Tongs wishes to work on his vertical jump before next year’s potential leap to the senior varsity Hawks; he stands at 5’8 now, but is still sprouting. His strongest skill, he believes, is getting to the ball quickly to prepare the set.

“Your vertical just improves the more you play,” he said. “Then, making your sets high, not necessarily to where they’re supposed to be but higher so that your hitters can get there,” he said.

See Tongs in action for Zone 2’s volleyball team at the Alberta Winter Games.