The Sacred Heart Saints senior girls' volleyball team welcomed three other schools, Kamsack, Fort Qu'Appelle and Melville to the Halo Dome this past Saturday for the 2014 SHSAA 4A Girls' Â鶹´«Ã½AV Conference One playoff tournament.
Sacred kicked the tournament off with a commanding straight sets victory over the Kamsack Spartans 25-11, 25-10 and then followed it up with yet another straight sets win, this time over Fort Qu'Appelle 25-12, 25-13.
The second win over Fort Qu'Appelle, combined with a Melville victory over Kamsack, clinched the Saints one of the two Regional qualification spots heading into their final game of the tournament against the also undefeated Melville Cobras.
An uncharacteristic slow start by the Saints gave the Cobras a 9-0 lead to kick off the opening set of the match, however tenacious Saints volleyball saw Sacred Heart battle back to tie the first set at 12.
The two teams then went back and forth, trading points each time before Melville finally succeeded in scoring several in a row to take the first set by the narrowest of margins, 25-23.
The second set saw the Saints once again battle back from an early deficit. This time however, the Saints used their momentum to power themselves through to a set victory to tie the final match up at one set each.
Unfortunately for the Saints fatigue seemed to catch up with them as they made some mental errors that they don't normally make, resulting in a set three defeat, 25-20 to the Melville Cobras.
Following the game Lady Saints head coach Perry Enns felt that his team played admirably but just made one too many mistakes and against a team the calibre of Melville, that's something they just cannot do. "We've had great matches with them all year long, so it was another good match," offered Enns. "It went to three sets, we had a few little hiccups here and there. We missed some serves at bad times and kind of struggled with the odd ball that we shouldn't have. So it's kind of just a few mental errors that we have to work on but overall I was very happy with the way that the girls played."
Two players that really made Enns a happy coach were Taneisha Roussin and grade 11 rookie setter Nicole Redl, the latter of which Enns feels really showed how much she has improved throughout the season. "Taneisha Roussin and Nicole Redl both served very well for us this weekend," offered Enns, continuing, "I also though Nicole did a great job setting for us. She's a first year setter, she's in grade 11 and she's really come a long way and really done a great job for our team this year."
So with the strong play of both Roussin and Redl leading the way, does Enns believe his team has what it takes to make it to the 4A Girls' Provincials for the third consecutive year? "We're hopeful that we'll make it through and go to Provincials," said the head coach. "I think there will be four really strong teams and it'll be a battle for those three spots to get through but we're hopeful we can do it.
"That is our goal."
Up next
The next action for the Sacred Heart Saints senior girls' volleyball team is this coming Saturday when they travel to Carlyle for the Â鶹´«Ã½AV Region 4A tournament.
Sacred's first opponent will be the hosts from Carlyle at 9:00a.m., quickly followed by a 1:00p.m. game against Lumsden. Only the top three teams qualify for 4A Girls' Provincials.
