The Fort Frances Muskie girls beat St. Patrick Saints two matches to none in the best of three series, with the Muskies dropping just one set over the two matches, setting the team up to return to OFSAA playoffs for the first time in five years.
After a dominant performance on Friday evening in which the Muskies won three straight sets, the Saints were looking like a new team in the first set Saturday morning, which they took 26-24. Muskies head coach Duane Roen said the players looked unsettled in the first set.
“They came out hard and everything we were trying from the day before wasn’t working,” Roen said.
“Even though that was happening, we still ended up almost winning that set, it was 24-21, I believe, and they came back to beat us that set and we seemed to be having an issue once we got to 24 to finish the set and that happened in the second set as well, we ended up [winning] at 28.”
The Muskies struggled on serves in the first set, which was not typical of the team that dropped only three sets all season in NORWOSSA play leading up to the NWOSSA games.
“Our serving game was off in the first set,” Roen said.
“We were under 50 per cent which is not normal, 80 per cent is always our goal. When we’re serving hard we get 70 per cent, if we can get that chances are we’re successful, because so many points can be had with a good serve.”
After the first match, St. Pat’s also managed to come up with a strategy to play against the Muskies’ heavy hitters Calleigh Councillor and Peyton Dolyny.
“We couldn’t necessarily count on our big hitters, our big playersin this game, because they found ways to block and to stop them,” Roen said.
“So it was often some of our setters or our right sides that had to come up and make a play.”
The Muskies also missed starting middle Ashlee Homer, who broke a finger in practice between the NORWOSSA finals and the NWOSSAA games. Roen said replacement Jordyn Oster took some time to get into the swing of things but was playing better in the second match.
“Even my middle who came in because of an injury, it was really her first time out there and she was very nervous the first day,” Roen said.
“But she started getting better the second day and started to hit the ball a little bit more.”
Councillor and Dolyny, who are both seniors this year, have played together in all four years of high school and have seen their hopes of an OFSAA qualifications come to fruition.
Dolyny says that as co-captains they see it as their job to keep the team in good spirits after dropping the first set.
“We were definitely down,” Dolyny said.
“But it’s important for us to bring up the team and make sure that we don’t show our emotions and just lift up everyone. Even just a high five helps everyone.”
“As soon as we went back on the court for the second set we were ready to go,” Councillor added.
The Muskie girls played for the OFSAA berth last year but fell in the best of three. Councillor says this year the team kept their eyes on the prize.
“We had that end goal and it’s super nice that we could do this on our last year together,” she said.
“I think it motivated us. With the younger girls that have come up we got a pretty good team and we all played really, really well and we worked really hard this season.”
Dolyny added that she felt the team deserved to qualify this year.
As they prepare to head to North Bay for the OFSAA ‘AA’ competition March 3-5, Roen says he’s excited to see what the team can do.
“This is a really good team, they’re solid,” Roen said.
“I guess our next stop is OFSAA to see how we team up against the rest of the province. My hope is to win, that’s always our goal. I just hope we continue to play the way we do here when we’re down there. Whatever measure of success we’re going to have, as long as we give everything we have out there, then I consider that a win.”
