With 10 wins in 14 sets, Princess Margaret Mustangs junior girls’ volleyball team is proving they are strong.
The Mustangs recently lost in the quarter-final of a 32-team tournament to Vernon Secondary. They began pool play with splits against Kelowna Secondary School and Handsworth from North Vancouver. They defeated Valleyview from Kamloops in straight sets and placed second in their pool, a good result according to coach Rich Corrie.
“We have quite a strong team this year for a smaller school and we compete in the valley and in tournaments against schools of all sizes, so it is nice to see the girls being competitive with the top teams in the valley,” said Corrie.
In mid-September, the Mustangs placed fifth out of 19 teams in a KSS tournament. They picked up wins against W.L. Seaton Secondary from Vernon, KLO Middle School in Kelowna and Kamloops’ Sahali Secondary.
In league play, the Mustangs are undefeated at 4-0 with wins coming against the Pen High Grade 10s, Pen High Grade 9 team, Summerland
and Keremeos.
Junior boys
The junior boys volleyball team returned home from UBC-O tournament as champions. It was their sixth time winning that tournament.
Maggie finished the round robin in first as they defeated Mt. Boucherie 3-0 and Norkam 2-1.
Colton Van Camp ran the offence extremely well by mixing up the attack. Kyle Kohlhauser, Spencer Kingzett and Grade nine Gurk Klar led the power attack with strong play and spike kills. Libero Brett VanOs and right side hitters Keagan Hawley and Jake MacLeod put in strong performances. In quarter – finals action, the Mustangs were matched up against Penticton and once again defeated the Lakers in straight sets 25-14, 25-12 to move onto the semi-finals. The Mustangs then steamrolled their way to the finals as they defeated Mt. Boucherie 25-7 and 25-10.
The finals featured the Mustangs against Kelowna Secondary School. The Mustangs prevailed for the fourth time this season.
“The games were closer than we would have liked with scores of 25-21 and 28-26. We built up leads but allowed Kelowna to grind their way back in both sets,” said Mustangs coach John Buckley. “As we struggled to keep our intensity, we also created more errors which gave them easy points and momentum. Part of that was both physical and mental fatigue as the day wore on. Cody Poitras was a real spark plug of energy and leadership as the match wore on.”