Mitch Calvert
After going winless during the regular season (0-8), both the Muskie junior and senior boys’ volleyball teams will be decided underdogs going into the NorWOSSA playoffs this Friday in Dryden—but they certainly aren’t waving the white flag just yet.
“We like to play everyone as much as we can in the league games to give everybody some playing time, but our goal over the week is to try to find who we think are going to be the leaders and put them on the court for those final games,” junior coach Duane Roen stressed.
“The thing is, we’ve taken sets away from all these teams, so it’s not as though it’s an impossibility.”
The juniors need look no further than last season as a shining example when the black-and-gold rode a six-game winning streak into the playoffs but were upset in the final.
“At NorWOSSA, who knows what can happen,” said Roen. “Last year we were 6-2 and still couldn’t close it, so who knows?”
Roen said his players have shown spurts of being a tough team to play against, but haven’t strung together good stretches of volleyball long enough to close out sets and win games.
“We just need to finish sets, that’s been our problem all season,” he admitted. “I think, in the end, it’s going to be whoever wants it more because I think the talent is there.”
The seniors, meanwhile, have a tall order in store, too. They struggled to find their form all season, and routinely looked deflated and frustrated on the court.
“We need some more spirit and communication,” Muskie Jesse Ranville told fortfrances.tv
“If we have more communication, we could probably win NorWOSSA, but right now we don’t have it, so let’s hope we switch it up in practice [for NorWOSSA],” he added.
Both teams will face Kenora, who swept them in their regular-season finales here last Tuesday (Oct. 28), in the semi-finals this Friday, with the winners moving on to face the first-place Dryden Eagles for their respective league crowns.
