Tournament: 18U Provincial Championships
Location: Rim Park, Waterloo
Date: April 30th - May 2nd 2010
Burlington Blaze U18 Provincial Results
The Burlington Blaze 18/19U team played their provincials on the weekend of April 30 to May 2 at Rim Park in Kitchener. We had hopes for a strong finish since the team has worked extremely hard on their defense the last month.
On the first day of competition we easily defeated the Bluewater Blizzard team from Sarnia with a score of 25-14 & 25-13. We had strong power serves and hitting from Ashley Whitted and Ana Lucic.
Next we played an exhibition game vs. Cambridge Hawks because they had forfeited the whole tournament due to ineligible players.
Then we faced a very strong team from Scarborough called the Diamonds. This team had several tall players who were strong blockers and hitters. We battled the first game but lost 18-25 by hitting too many attacks out of bounds as well as serves. The second game we came back to win 25-19 with exceptional defense from Jelaina Whitney and Jenna Bray passing up some major attacks. The third game was just as tough but the team lost 15-11.
This placed us second in our pool for the following day’s round robin.
On day two we faced even harder teams but we were more on our game. First was a strong hitting team called the Pegasus Diggers from Kingston. We lost the first game 19-25 due to too many offensive errors but came back hard the second and third game to win 25-19 and 15-10. Excellent setting was done by Caitlin Jamieson and strong middle offensive playing by Julie Gagnon.
Again we played another exhibition game with the Cambridge Hawks then faced our final team of the day; the Pegasus Venom also from Kingston. They were ranked #1 in our pool and we knew going in it was going to be a tough game. Fortunately for us we have some extremely strong serving from Rebecca Wright, Megan Moylan and Jenna Wright and with all three doing jump float serves the opposition has difficulty returning the ball. The Kingston coach even commented on the excellent serving from our team.
This placed us in first place in our pool for the last day of competition.
We again faced the Bluewater Blizzard from Sarnia. They weren’t such a walk over this time and we lost the first game 22-25. Then the team got down to business and easily beat them two straight 25-15 and 15-9 to advance to the semifinals with Nadine Greer getting some excellent attacks.
In the semi-finals we again faced the Scarborough Diamonds. The team battled hard but found it difficult to attack past their tall front line. We lost both games 23-25 and 17-25 sending us to the bronze medal round.
We faced the Pegasus Venum from Kingston again. The team started slow making too many serving and offensive errors. Taylor Harapiak had a strong game as libero with a dam near perfect passing record unfortunately our offense couldn’t produce from the beautiful passing. We lost 25-20 and 24-26.
We had a difficult year trying to pull a bunch of players from several different teams to make a strong U18 team. Without anyone taller than 5’10” it is difficult to compete at the higher levels. We turned into a very strong defensive team with incredible passing and digs. Unfortunately we didn’t have the offense to match.
I would like to thank first off my assistant coach Jesse Meggitt for all her help and input throughout the year. Also, I would like to thank Val Cant who did so much behind the scene work as our parent rep. It allowed me to concentrate on just coaching instead of worrying about all the paperwork and fundraising. Thankyou to Glen Greer and Maurice Harapaik for being the team’s official linesmen. You both have keen eyes and did a great job. Also, thanks goes to Dian Moylan for being our official score keeping a provincials. You were punctual and accurate never holding up the game.
I want to wish all the players good luck in their futures; some going on the post secondary school and others taking a victory lap. It has been quite an experience coaching this age group with all their ups and downs but overall a valuable learning experience for me. It was a pleasure getting to know all the players and parents.
Patti