Staff
There will be no return visit to the all-Ontarios this season for the Muskie senior boys’ volleyball team, which was swept in the best-of-three NWOSSAA final by the host Churchill Trojans (Thunder Bay) over the weekend.
Fort High was forced to default its first match Friday night when their regular bus for road trips was unavailable.
Their effort to get to Thunder Bay by way of two Rainy River District School Board vans also was in vain.
The team already had left town when it was instructed to return to Fort Frances reportedly because the vans were not equipped with winter tires and thus deemed unsafe for out-of-town travel.
That forced the Muskies to get up extra early for a 5 a.m. bus departure to make it for the second match of the series later that morning.
The fatigued black-and-gold put up a gallant fight but fell 3-1 (25-22, 26-24, 10-25, and 25-22) to Churchill to end their season.
“Yeah, I think we would be heading to OFSAA if things would have played out differently,” said disappointed head coach Shana Windigo.
“I think that having to wake up super early, driving in a school bus all morning, and playing right away affected the boys,” she added.
The Muskies went undefeated to capture its first NorWOSSA title in 16 years after having won the NWOSSAA title last season (the NorWOSSA champion Dryden Eagles received a bye to OFSAA as the host team).
Churchill, meanwhile, will be at OFSAA for the second time in three years after having hosted it in 2013.
