Wildcats drop two-set final to Golden at high school volleyball tourney in Trail, LVR fourth, Stanley Humphries sixth
By The Nelson Daily Sports
The Golden Eagles outscored the Mount Sentinel Wildcats 50-22 in the championship final to capture the gold medal at the J. Lloyd Crowe Hawks High School Girl’s Volleyball tournament Saturday in the Silver City.
The Eagles won the best-of-three tournament final in consecutive games 25-10, 25-12.
“We played well at times, but as anticipated, we were quite hesitant when the opponent had momentum,” said Sentinel varsity coach Joe Moreira.
Selkirk Storm of Kimberley finished third followed in fourth by L.V. Rogers Bombers of Nelson. Host J. Lloyd Crowe took fifth with Castlegar’s Stanley Humphries Rockers sixth.
The Wildcats entered the final with a little bit of momentum having played well in the final round robin game against the same Eagles.
Mount Sentinel split the first two games of the round robin contest, losing the opener 25-19 before rallying back to tie the match 25-20.
But in the final game the Wildcats hit the wall losing 15-5.
“I have only theories as to why this happened,” Moreira explained.
“One is Golden is a pretty good team with an outstanding hitter, a good setter and a number of good servers. And the second is we are a young team (no Grade 12s of 10s and at anytime we have four 11’s and two nines on the floor.”
Mount Sentinel, unranked in single-A high school girl’s provincial standings, hit the road this weekend for a tournament in Kelowna.
The squad enters the tourney ranked sixth in the six-team affair.
“This (Trail tournament) was a good warm-up for us,” said Moreira.
“Hopefully we learned what we need to focus on for the next little while because coming up is a tough test with no easy matches.”
The following weekend the Wildcats play host to the Kootenay Classic at Mount Sentinel.
Then the Cats host a touring German team October 3-5 at the South Slocan-based school.
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