Joey Payeur
Jason Cain could have given the famous “win one for the Gipper” speech, but he didn’t have to.
The Muskie junior girls’ volleyball team wasn’t about to let down their coach—even if she was more than 1,000 km away.
The squad captured its first league title since 2012 with a convincing 3-0 sweep (25-20, 25-13, and 25-15) of the defending champion Dryden Eagles in the NorWOSSA final there Friday.
Cain and Duane Roen, who normally helm the Muskies’ senior girls’ volleyball squad, stepped in to fill the void when junior girls’ coach Kirsten Talsma was called to southern Ontario to attend her grandfather’s funeral.
“They definitely wanted to win it for their coach,” Cain said about the Muskies, who were perfect in league play the season with an 8-0 regular-season record and then the victory in the final.
“It wasn’t too bad for us,” Cain added, referring to himself and Roen.
“We went to their last couple of practices and let them play out what they were usually doing so we could see what was going on before walking into NorWOSSA,” he explained.
Dryden, who had beaten the Kenora Broncos in the semi-final earlier Friday, lived up to its powerhouse reputation in the first set, which was tied 19-19.
But a block by Abby Sanders led to a 6-1 Fort High run to end the set, with Tanisha Boshkaykin hammering three unreturnable serves and Socorro Galusha delivering a set-ending kill with authority.
“It really came down to our serving game and Tanisha was dominant,” lauded Cain.
“Socorro was really strong at the net and Chelsea Kabatay had a couple of really good swings, too,” he added.
“All six starters really played well,” Cain noted.
“And even when Hailey George rolled her ankle and had to come out for a bit, Tiffany Morrison went in cold and ended up serving the point that won the second set.”
Leading 14-11 in the second set, Kabatay made a resounding kill to get the ball back, then delivering five-straight serves that either were aces or unreturnable.
The force of her serves was so overwhelming, in fact, that one of the Eagles had to come out with a bleeding nose after diving in vain to try and return one of them.
With the title one set away, Cain was impressed by the demeanour of a team made up of many players who had suffered a difficult loss in last year’s NorWOSSA final to Dryden on their home floor after also having a bye to the final.
“They were excited but calm about it,” Cain recalled.
“They were all positive. They knew they had a mission.
“I told them to breathe and do what Kirsten taught them to do,” Cain added.
“She did a great job with them all year.”
The Eagles used the adrenaline provided by their raucous home crowd to go up 15-13 in the third set.
But Dryden’s next serve, which went wide, turned out to be its last as champion as Boshkaykin and Galusha put on a tour de force from then on.
Boshkaykin served 11-straight points, which included two aces and four other serves the Eagles couldn’t return, while Galusha threw up back-to-back blocks on kill opportunities.
At match point, Boshkaykin unloaded one more rocket that Dryden’s libero only could get a small piece of in her diving attempt to keep the ball alive—sending the Muskie bench into a frenzied celebration.
“The thing about NorWOSSA is you can go 8-0 or 0-8 in the season and still win it all,” noted Cain, who was in contact with Talsma shortly after the Muskies held up the trophy.
“She was watching it online and I texted her afterwards,” he said.
“She was pretty proud.”
There is no NWOSSAA playoff at the junior level.
