Cougars are champs

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

It’s been eight years in the making for Crowther Memorial Junior High School senior boys volleyball team, but they finally became champions after knocking off the Okotoks Ocelots in a thrilling three-set finals match in the year-end zone tournament.
After finishing second place numerous times, including to the same Ocelots team a season ago, senior boys volleyball coach Brad Huntley was excited for the team to finally win the banner.
“I was really excited for the boys, they earned it this year,” said Huntley. “They deserved to win the banner and for the game to end up that close makes it sweet, but it also makes it stressful.”
Huntley gave his squad credit for being mentally engaged in the games, and combining that with every aspect of the team’s game, became the deciding factor in winning gold.
“Even though our serving game struggled, they picked up their mental game,” said Huntley. “And that way they just didn’t fall out of the game. They could’ve but they stuck in there but beyond that, our passing and setting was extremely good this weekend. Our offence was solid with some extremely hot points where they were heating up and hitting like high school hitters.”
For the senior girls, being hosts on their side of the tournament was more about team building and showing strides in improving their overall game.
“It all came together of what we’ve been working on all season,” said coach Lindsay Hall. “They all played strong in every game and we don’t have a lot of girls either. We had some injuries, girls away at other sports. People stepped up, they did really good.”