Ten teams from around the province took part in the event hosted by the Yorkton Volleyball Club. Teams included Strasbourg, Meunster, McSweeney's Selects (Yorkton), Blitz 14s, Weyburn made up pool A. Watrous, Kipling, Fort Fusion, Blitz Fierce and Moose Jaw comprised pool B.
Two days full of competitive action found a very even playing field with a lot of matches going the full necessary three sets to find a winner. Winners ended up being the Weyburn Allouettes, second was Holdfast and third was Moose Jaw.
Brent Brown, coach of the host club McSweeney's Selects said it was both good and not so good at the same time.
"The host McSweeney's Selects had a very up and down weekend. There were games when they played excellent; they gave the eventual winners everything they could handle, but just came up short in the end." He said there were also time where nothing went right and things got unpredictable.
"Unfortunately there were also other games when mental errors took their tole and games that should have been easily won were barely won or lost." There is a definite need over the next couple of practices to work on serve consistency, he said after the tournament.
"We can serve as hard and as accurate as any of the top teams in the province, but we are making too many errors giving free points away to easily and not being able to capitalize on free balls when the opportunities present themselves."
The Blitz Fierce 15U team participated as well and gained some excellent experience that they can use going forward. They played up a division and showed very well, winning a couple matches and forcing a couple others to the maximum showing alot of grit and hustle.
Next up for the McSweeney's is a tournament in Regina in a couple weekends followed by hosting another Asics cup tournament the last weekend in March.
This will be a 16U tournament and the younger 15U team will be playing up to garner as much experience as possible from the older teams that they will be competing against. The year will culminate with provincials and then the long trek to westerns taking place in Calgary on the May long weekend where approximately 280 teams will be participating from across the country.
