Lucas Punkari
It’s a simple adage that is used throughout the world of sports: If you want to better yourself as an athlete and as a team, you need to play against the best competition possible.
That’s exactly what the coaches of the Muskie senior and junior boys’ volleyball teams were hoping to accomplish over the weekend at separate tournaments in Winnipeg.
The senior spikers were competing in the MBCI, where they finished with an 0-3-2 mark after splitting matches with Vincent Massey and Kelvin while losing to Steinbach, John Taylor, and River East.
“In a few of our games, we were able to play a high level of volleyball with the teams there,” head coach Alison Hyatt noted.
“There were some sets that we should have taken, but we made a few unforced errors that we shouldn’t have and as a result, those sets that we thought we could have won ended up going the other way.
“But those teams that we were up against were all nationally- or provincially-ranked teams, so it was good to see them and to see how we matched up against them,” Hyatt reasoned.
However, the Muskies were unable to parlay their play in Winnipeg into a successful showing in their NorWOSSA regular-season finale here yesterday afternoon.
The black-and-gold fell to the Dryden Eagles in four sets (18-25, 25-19, 13-25, and 4-25) finish with a 3-5 record.
Last week, Fort High lost to the league-leading Eagles here on Tuesday (25-27, 18-25, 25-15, 25-11, and 13-15), but then bounced back with a win two days later on the road against the Kenora Broncos (23-25, 25-16, 25-19, 23-25, and 15-8).
“We seem to have a tendency to start off really slow and make sure that the fans stay interested with those close five-set [matches],” Hyatt smiled.
“Early on against Kenora, we really didn’t come to play,” she admitted. “But as the game wore on, we really started to wake up.
“And even though we lost to Dryden in five sets, I thought that was the best [match] that the guys have played all year long.”
The Muskies, who entered yesterday’s game in second place in the standings, already know they’ll be facing Kenora in the NorWOSSA semi-finals next Thursday (Nov. 10) in Dryden given the Eagles already have wrapped up top spot.
“We’ve been working on changing a few things up the way that we play here recently in practices, and I’m hoping that we do really well against Dryden and in the practices ahead before we go into the playoffs,” Hyatt said.
As for the junior squad, they participated in a weekend tournament hosted by Sturgeon Heights, where they finished with a 1-3 record in the round-robin portion before being ousted by MBCI in two sets in the playoffs to finish in eighth place.
However, the players thoroughly enjoyed their experience in Winnipeg against some of the top teams in Manitoba.
“It was so much fun,” enthused Grade 10 player Chandler Cousineau.
“We got so much better at our blocking this weekend by taking part in that tournament,” he noted.
“And even though our serving may have not been our best, we now have a lot of different things that we can build on and work on for NorWOSSA.”
Heading into yesterday’s regular-season finale against Dryden here, the black-and-gold had a 3-4 record following a straight-sets defeat to the Eagles last Tuesday (20-25, 16-25, and 15-25) and a five-set triumph over Kenora there Thursday (25-17, 20-25, 25-23, 13-25, and 15-13).
“Against Dryden, we didn’t play all that well, especially on defence as we were really sloppy,” conceded Grade 10 player Derek Kaemingh.
“Then against Kenora, most of our sets went really well and we ended up winning the game, which I think really came down to our hitting being better in that game,” he added.
Like their senior counterparts, the junior spikers will have to play in the semi-final against Kenora next Thursday as Dryden already has clinched first spot and the bye to the final.
“I think that should be a really good and tight game [against Kenora],” Kaemingh said.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to win that game and be able to get a little bit of momentum going into the final,” he added.
