Junior A Girls Volleyball Silver Winners

At the weekend, the Junior A Girls volleyball team headed to the Vancouver Island University (formerly Malaspina College) 16-team junior high school volleyball tournament. The girls started the round-robin play with a match against Brooks from Powell River, winning the first game 25-21, but losing the second (29-27) as Brooks fought back.  The match was a nail-biter, but showed the promise of this new Junior A team. With only two returning players from last year's squad the team is inexperienced, but full of talent. The next matches were against Belmont and Dover Bay with Brentwood losing both: 17-25, 20-25 to Dover Bay and 18-25, 21-25 to Belmont.  Despite the losses, the girls were in good spirits heading back to the school for a night's rest before returning to continue play the next day. Saturday saw the amazing depth and potential of this team.  Despite being down two athletes to begin play, the girls won their first match against Mountain (25-13, 18-25 and 15-5) and the second playoff match against Carihi: 21-25, 25-23 and 15-12.  This win secured a spot in the Silver Final ('B' side of the draw) against GP Vanier.  The girls came out strongly and won the first game 25-21.  This gave them the confidence to keep the momentum going to win 25-18 in the second!  The weekend was an excellent start to a very promising season with strong performances from Emily Hindson, Erica Mayer, Mairi Horth, Stacey Kosteckyj and a very versatile Alia Villanueva. Tanya Scheck