It took a somewhat imbalanced draw to at last cool off the McRoberts Strikers at the B.C. AAA Girls Volleyball Championships in Vernon.
The Strikers headed to the Interior last week with loads of momentum, having rolled to convincing victories at the Richmond and Lower Mainland Championships — not dropping a set in the process. It was enough to earn the No. 4 seed in the 16-team tournament.
McRoberts continued its strong play in round-robin action, winning a pair of matches before finally falling to the host Panthers — another tournament contender.
The loss left the Strikers second in their pool and and set-up what would be a treacherous path to a potential title.
McRoberts won a hard-fought three set round of 16 match against Okanagan Mission, then squared off with the Sa-Hali Sabres in a quarter-final showdown of top four ranked teams.
The Kamloops school produced an impressive victory en route to the title and proved to be the class of the tournament — dropping just one set in its four playoff matches.
With four provincial team players, nobody was getting in the Sabres’ way, McRoberts coach Trish Nicholson only wonders how two high tournament seeds met in the round of eight.
“It would have been nice if the draw was done little more fairly,” she said. “As it turned out, half of it was soft and the other half was hard. “We easily took care of Windsor (twice this season) yet they won their pool, their cross-over game and were a set away from being in the semi-finals.”
McRoberts moved onto consolation play where it defeated Windsor in straight sets for the second time in two weeks, only to fall to Vernon again in the fifth place game. The Strikers led 14-7 in the third and deciding set before the Panthers reeled off nine straight points for the improbable win.
Tia Tsang capped her outstanding volleyball career in style, earning second team all-star honours. The Grade 12 standout will now turn her full-time attention to basketball, having recently signed with Simon Fraser University. She is also headed to Toronto this weekend for a Basketball Canada women’s national age group assessment camp.
Meanwhile, McRoberts boys team closed out their season at the AA provincials in Langley, placing 11th.
The Strikers bowed out of contention with a round of 16 loss to Okanagan’s George Elliot Secondary. The Richmond champions moved on to placement play where they defeated Prince Charles in two sets, before falling in three to DP Todd.
Jeff Lam was an all-star honourable mention.
In the provincial AAA tourney, the McMath Wildcats placed 17th. They needed to get past Riverside to advance to the round of 16 but fell in three sets.
The Wildcats did close out their season with wins over Belmont and North Peace.
