Joey Payeur
All season long, the Muskie senior girls’ volleyball team has refused to do things the easy way, to take shortcuts, or to break under the weight of adversity.
Those traits all came into play over the weekend and because they did, the black-and-gold’s season will continue.
Fort High added the NWOSSAA championship to its NorWOSSA crown won the previous week by sweeping the Westgate Tigers 2-0 in their best-of-three matchup here.
Next up is the OFSAA ‘AA’ championship March 6-8 in Belleville. And Muskie co-coach Amy Wilson-Hands isn’t downsizing her expectations.
“To be honest, if these girls play like they can play, I see great things for them,” she predicted.
“I don’t think an OFSAA medal is out of reach,” Wilson-Hands added. “We have awesome hitters, awesome servers, and [setter] Tanisha Boshkaykin is terrific at running the offence.
“I think the Muskies are going to represent the north very well.”
The tone for the series may have been established in Friday’s first set, which unfolded in a way that defied logic for this high a level of competition.
Westgate–looking every bit the undefeated regular-season and playoff champs in Thunder Bay–jumped out to a 21-8 lead and then sat one point from claiming the set at 24-14.
But Sydney White and her teammates decided that was not going to be allowed to stand as the Muskie veteran hammered a kill home.
She then took over behind the service line and refused to leave.
By the time White was done, Fort High had put together an astounding 12-0 run with the help of four kills by left-side hitter Chelsea Kabatay and two more by middle Socorro Galusha coming off the bench, including the set clincher the Tigers couldn’t return to finish off a 26-24 victory.
“Winning that set gave us a lot of motivation for the rest of the weekend,” said veteran libero Alyssa Clendenning.
“It was like it’s been all year for us,” she noted. “When we got down, we picked each other up.”
“Our composure is very important,” agreed Boshkaykin.
“If we lose a set, we might get down on ourselves a bit, but we motivate each other to get it going again,” she said.
Still reeling from the collapse, Westgate dropped the second set relatively easily 25-16, but seemed to be back in business by leading 12-5 in the third.
But White again was the catalyst for a comeback–drilling a kill and then taking over from the service line as part of a 8-0 run to give Fort High a 13-12 lead.
Then with the teams tied at 18-18, the Tigers imploded with four errors as part of 7-2 run finished off by a cross-court sledgehammer by White to take the set 25-20 and the match 3-0.
“It’s hard to beat a team that doesn’t get tired,” noted Muskie co-coach Terry “Goose” McMahon, whose main role was as a conditioning specialist who pushed the team to increase its ability to meet the physical demands of competition.
“In volleyball, you have to have a fine balance between knowing who’s hurting and who’s not, and make adjustments on the fly to get to the next level, which is what they did.”
Facing a do-or-die scenario Saturday morning, the Tigers came out growling, especially veteran power Payton Kooistra.
She shook off some misfires Friday to record six kills in the first set alone to help Westgate to a 25-22 win, including two crushing shots to close the set.
“It takes [the Muskies] a bit to get going,” noted Wilson-Hands. “But once they get going, they’re unstoppable.”
Such was the case in the second set, where Fort High got up 17-11, although the Tigers eventually tied it up at 24-24 before Nicole Nummikoski’s too-long serve and Madison Martinuzzi’s double hit gave the Muskies a 26-24 victory.
The street fight was officially on and continued through the next two sets.
There were 13 ties throughout the third set, which featured six kills from middle Carmen Godin, including four in a six-point span.
With the score tied at 21-21, Sasha Wilson put her serve into the net to hand the ball back to the Muskies.
Galusha stepped up royally at that point–serving the last three points, including rockets on the final two that Westgate couldn’t return, to give Fort High the set by a 25-21 score.
“That was pretty cool,” chuckled the Grade 11 rookie on the senior squad.
“I don’t usually get too nervous about those kind of things,” she added.
“I’ve got a positive support network out there with a team that’s got my back, so I’m not stressed and can just get the job taken care of.”
Wilson-Hands said the contributions of everyone from the roster stem from the basic philosophy of developing versatile performers.
“Some teams focus on making good back-row players or good front-row players, and that’s great for them,” she remarked.
“But we want to have good all-around players so we can do things like today, where we moved Chelsea to the middle and Socorro to the left side.
“It speaks volumes about our players,” added Wilson-Hands.
“They have practised hard and they brought it today [Saturday].”
The fourth set saw the Muskies keep building leads, only to give them back to a Tigers’ team that would not fade away without a fight.
A missed serve by White, followed by back-to-back kills into the net by Godin, had Westgate back on even terms at 22-22.
Enter Kabatay, who literally rose to the occasion by soaring at the net and cranking blast after blast set up for her perfectly by Boshkaykin.
Kabatay ended the match with three-straight kills (15 for the match)–the last one careening off the attempted block of Westgate’s Letitia Monroe and down to the floor to bring a roar from the home crowd and a scream-filled, jumping group hug among the players.
The team concept was exemplified no better than rookie Savannah Sinclair, who never got on the floor in the NorWOSSA or NWOSSAA finals but still sported the brightest smile of anyone afterwards.
“We all get along so well. This feels fantastic,” beamed Sinclair.
Co-coach Shana Windigo has become a black-and-gold lucky charm of sorts–having coached both the Muskie senior boys and junior girls to NorWOSSA championships last year and now the senior girls this season.
“If there was any team that was going to do it, it was this one,” a thrilled Windigo said.
“There was no doubt in my mind they were going to go all the way.”
The seedings and schedule for the all-Ontarios will be announced in the coming days.
