Mitch Calvert
The Muskie senior and junior girls’ volleyball squads finished out of the medals at a tournament in Kenora over the weekend.
The seniors breezed through the round-robin with wins over Sioux Lookout (25-17, 25-21) and Red Lake (25-15, 25-12), while splitting against Kenora (23-25, 25-11) and Westgate (25-20, 14-25) to finish first in their pool.
The girls then carried that momentum into the opening round of the playoffs with a straight-sets victory over the Churchill Trojans by scores of 25-13 and 25-23.
Their streak stalled there, however, as they dropped their next match to the eventual runners-up, the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora), by scores of 25-14 and 25-8.
“We struggled against them,” coach Duane Roen admitted. “We just couldn’t get anything going.
“‘TA’ is a solid team, really good defensively, and when we did hit it at them, they were able to dig it up and come back at us, and hit the ball where we weren’t, and that’s all it took.”
The double-elimination format meant the seniors had one more crack at advancing, but with their backs against the wall, they dropped a rematch to the Westgate Tigers by scores of 25-18, 16-25, and 11-15.
“We were up on them in the third set, too, but they were able to dig their way back and knock us out,” Roen noted.
“Whenever we were running an offence, we played really well, had some big hits, and our blocking really picked up, but we didn’t do that consistently against them,” he added.
The Muskies were a little short-handed, missing Emma Elliot all weekend, but Roen said some of the rookies elevated their game and worked hard.
“We were missing one of our power hitters with Emma, but some of the other girls picked up the slack and played well,” he enthused. “The first-year players are steadily improving, and our veterans are becoming more comfortable with running our offence and defensive blocking.”
Despite a good round-robin and some hard-fought matches against some of the best teams in the district, Roen admitted there were a few obvious things that need to be corrected moving forward.
“More work is needed on serving, serve receive, and lateral movement,” he stressed. “[But] our team chemistry and confidence has definitely shown improvement, and we are looking forward to the last half of the season.”
The Dryden Eagles won both the senior and junior divisions—once again proving to be the area’s top volleyball program until someone can start to beat them consistently.
“They’ve had everybody’s number, no one in this district has been able to take a set on them yet to my knowledge,” Roen said of the Eagles’ senior team.
“They are a strong team, and part of it is the more sets they win, the higher ranking they get if they make it to OFSAA, so you rarely ever see their second line out on the court.”
Meanwhile, the junior Muskies split their squad for the tournament. Team #1 won three matches and split two to finish tied for second overall in the round-robin (they missed the gold-medal game by point differential) while Team #2 won one, split two, and lost two, putting them into a scramble for 11th place overall.
Team #1 then played La Verendrye in the bronze-medal game, losing the best-of-three match by scores of 24-26 and 23-25 to finish fourth overall.
Team #2, meanwhile, played Hammarskjold in their consolation game and won in straight sets (25-20 and 25-22).
The junior girls had beaten the Dryden Eagles in a bit of an upset in NorWOSSA play there last Thursday to improve their league record to 3-1 while the seniors lost to Dryden to fall to 2-2.
The Muskies host Dryden tomorrow (Jan. 15).
