Elijah Kim and Martin Prinsloo capped off a very successful beach volleyball season by capturing the U14 title at the Canadian Beach Nationals in Parksville over the weekend.
The Richmond Christian students had earlier won the B.C. High School Beach Open back in June and were looking to continue their winning ways on Vancouver Island.
Braving through high wind gusts and rain in the first two days before sun finally broke at the three-day tournament, the boys went 8-0, thrilling the crowd with tenacious defending and precision attack.
The battle for gold was a rematch against their familiar foe from the BC High School Beach Open finals who came out firing, determined to capture a win over the team from Beach Attack Club (an affiliate of Air Attack Volleyball Club) for the first time in five tries. It was an exciting match with the momentum shifting back and forth, but ultimately the boys secured a 2-1 win with a close score of 15-13 in the third set.
Kim and Prinsloo are quick to credit much of their success to coaches Daniel Wong and Travis McClellan, as well as all of the other U14, U15 and U16 boys Beach Attack teammates for constantly pushing each other to raise their game.
Aside from the Kim/Prinsloo U14 team, a number of other Beach Attack teams earned respectable finishes at the Nationals. Well done boys!
