Staff
Last year’s season for the Muskie junior girls’ volleyball team was like a great novel with the last page missing.
This time around, it was a storybook finish for the black-and-gold.
Fort High closed out an undefeated campaign in style Friday in Dryden with an emphatic 3-0 victory (25-20, 25-13, and 25-15) over the defending champion Eagles to capture NorWOSSA gold—the first title for the junior squad since 2012.
“The thing about NorWOSSA is you can go 0-8 or 8-0 in the season and still win it all,” noted Jason Cain, who stepped in with Muskie senior girls’ co-coach Duane Roen at the last minute to guide the team in the absence of regular coach Kirsten Talsma, who was away at her grandfather’s funeral in southern Ontario.
The Muskies had a bye to the final after finishing in first place with an 8-0 record—one game better than last year’s team that went 7-1 before losing at home to Dryden in the gold-medal match.
Fort High also made it to the final in the senior girls’ volleyball division after sweeping the Kenora Broncos 3-0 (25-12, 25-13, and 25-16) in the semi-final earlier Friday.
The triumph also earned the Muskie a spot in the best-of-three NWOSSAA championship here against the Thunder Bay champs.
That’s because Dryden has an automatic berth in the OFSAA ‘AA’ championship March 9-12 as host team.
The Muskies would have preferred going into NWOSSAA as the reigning league champions, but lost a five-set thriller in the final to the Eagles (25-14, 21-25, 29-27, 18-25, and 15-12).
Game 1 of the NWOSSAA final goes Friday at 3 p.m. at Fort High, with Game 2 set for Saturday at 10 a.m.
Game 3, if necessary, will be go Saturday at 2 p.m.
In boys’ basketball action, the Muskie senior squad also finished with a silver medal Friday after losing 66-53 to the Eagles in the NorWOSSA final.
Connor Bujold and Jacob Empey each had 14 points to lead Fort High.
The black-and-gold advanced to the final after topping the Kenora Broncos 67-49 in the semi-final earlier Friday.
As for the junior boys, Cole Kowalski’s game-high 32 points weren’t enough to get Fort High past Kenora in a 68-65 win for the Broncos in the semi-final.
Kowalski had a chance to tie it but his three-point attempt got stuck between the side of the rim and the backboard with 4.7 seconds left.
The Muskies, who only had two returning players from last year’s NorWOSSA-winning squad and just four Grade 10s in total, went 0-8 during the regular season.
Dryden later thrashed Kenora 45-17 in the final to take the junior boys’ title.
