鈥淲e tried to come together to focus and go back to what we鈥檝e learned this season: we鈥檙e in this together.鈥
This was the mindset for Wet Kelonwa鈥檚 Mount Boucherie Secondary Grade 9 girls鈥 volleyball team, which placed third in this year鈥檚 provincials. The Bears only lost one game, to the team that would end up placing first, Riverside Secondary.
鈥淲e worked really hard, and we put in a lot of time during training, but we were still nervous,鈥 said Bears鈥 Kirsten Hill about the semi-final match. 鈥淏ut everyone was on their game, consistent, and working to get every dig or hit.鈥
In the match against Riverside, the Bears came across the same problem they had seen in other matches.
鈥淭hey were smaller teams, and they were really good defensively,鈥 said Kenedi Woodcox, the Bears鈥 setter. 鈥淚t was super different for us to play against teams with that good of a defence. After the first six games of the tournament, we knew that we were going to have to beat the Riverside Rapids鈥 defence to advance.鈥
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Unfortunately, the Bears were unable to advance to the gold medal match. But coach Jeff Cundy said he was happy with his teams鈥 bronze medal.
鈥榃e have a super talented bunch here, and we peaked at the best time during the tournament,鈥 said Cundy. 鈥淲e were dominant in most of the games and it was great to get all of our players involved throughout the tournament. Kirsten was great on the net, and our setters Kenedi and Maya were the glue that held the team together, but all of our players stepped up to help us succeed. We did get frustrated with the high level of defence we faced, but we stuck with our game-plans to get through it. We want to keep this team of girls together going forward and see if we can get gold next year.鈥
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The tournament鈥檚 tough schedule meant keeping the energy up for the Bears was at times hard to do.
鈥淚t was hard to keep the energy consistent,鈥 said Maya Moodie. 鈥淲e tried to pump ourselves up, but having our coaches and parents there to do it for us helped us a lot during the tournament.鈥
Most of the Bears鈥 squad play in a West 麻豆精选 volleyball league with one another, and they want to keep their relationships strong.
鈥淪ome of us have been playing together for years, and we like that,鈥 said Kirsten.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to keep playing until grade 12 and look forward to where volleyball takes us after high school,鈥 said Maya.
鈥淲e鈥檙e all best friends,鈥 said Kenedi.
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