It was a special weekend for the Medstead Mustangs senior boys’ volleyball team.
Not only were they the host team for this year’s SHSAA 2A tournament, but they also captured their fourth provincial championship in school history.
The Mustangs captured a banner for the first time since 2013 with a two-set win (25-22 and 25-19) over the Island Lake Warriors.
“It was pretty amazing,” Mustangs head coach Greg Knot said. “We entered the tournament as the fourth seed, and we were just hoping to make it to the semifinal.
“We had been to a number of finals, but we hadn’t won a tournament all year. We had to beat Fox Valley in our last round-robin game to get into the playoffs, but after that the boys played the best volleyball that they had played all year.”
Due to a number of injuries throughout the course of the season, the Mustangs weren’t able to use their full roster of 16 players until the provincial tournament.
“Our six Grade 12 players have been playing together for the last six years, so finally getting that chemistry back in the squad was huge,” Knot said.
“Our ball movement was probably what stood out the most with that group during the weekend. We’re not the type of team that can outblock or outhit our opponents, so we worked a lot on keeping the other teams off balance with how we moved the ball around.”
The Mustangs toughest match of the weekend came in the quarter-final Saturday, as they defeated the Hepburn Hawks in a three-set thriller.
“They were the team that scared me the most,” Knot said. “A year ago we had beaten them four straight times in the regular season, but then they got the win over us in the provincial semifinal.
“They have an incredible setter, which made things pretty tough. It was pretty much a flip of a coin between both teams, but we were able to take control at the very end.”
The Mustangs also had to deal with elements out of their control, as a power outage caused havoc with the round-robin schedule Friday.
“When the power went out at around 10:30 a.m., we just assumed that it would only last for a few minutes,” Knot said. “When it started to last longer and longer, we realized we had to do something.
“The power didn’t come back on until a little after 3 p.m., so we couldn’t have any games at the gyms in Medstead or Glaslyn. Luckily, the schools in Spiritwood and Turtleford helped us out, and we were very appreciative of that. The amount of work everyone put in to get everything back on track was impressive.”
The Turtleford Titans also took part in the 2A provincials, but missed out on the playoffs.
Elsewhere, the Cut Knife Condors won the bronze medal at the 1A tournament in Broadview as they defeated the H. Hardcastle Royals of Edam in three sets.
The Maidstone Huskies also had a chance to make it on the podium at the 3A tournament in Osler, but came up short in the bronze medal game to host Valley Christian Academy Lions.
Wilkie’s McLurg Broncos made it to the quarter-finals but were eliminated from the competition by Ecole St-Isidore of Bellevue.
