The home side won the Estevan Elecs Invitational senior girls' volleyball tournament Saturday by finally beating a familiar rival when it counted most.
After losing to the Oxbow Black Knights in the championship match at their last two annual home tournaments, the Elecs bested their friends to the east with a 25-16, 21-25 and come-from-behind 15-9 score. The Elecs were down 8-6 to the Black Knights when the teams changed sides in the final set with Estevan senior Tess Lindquist up to serve.
“There was a huge open spot in the corner back,” said Lindquist, who plays middle for the Elecs. “Some of the short (serves) they have trouble with because there are too many people clustered. (I tried to) confuse them a little bit.”
Lindquist rattled off seven serves for points to give the Elecs a commanding 13-8 lead. After Black Knight Jessie Ritchie scored a point on their serve, Oxbow gave the ball back, leading to the deciding points scored on Elecs’ setter Abbie Reich’s serve.
“We played hard,” said Reich, also a senior player with the Elecs. “Once we get ahead a couple then we go and we’re into it. As soon as we get excited and our energy is up and our attitudes are positive we’re good to go.”
Riley Singleton, head coach of the Black Knights, said there were constant attacks by both sides in the final set and that is always what they get against Estevan at the Elecs Invitational, but unlike the past two years they couldn’t pull out a win this time. He said Lindquist just got on a roll and finished off the match with her serve and that was it.
Elecs head coach Myles Fichter said the final set was a battle early with the Oxbow girls picking up their game once again after doing so in the second set. He said the Black Knights' defence was stellar in the final two sets contesting shots, digging for balls and not letting anything hit the floor.
“They made it tough on us,” said Fichter. “It wasn’t our best performance, but they played extremely well. They made it a tight match.”
Estevan made it to the playoff round on Saturday afternoon by going 6-0 during the round-robin portion of the Elecs Invitational Friday evening and Saturday morning. As they did in the round robin, the Elecs won every set in their 25-19 and 25-20 semifinal victory over the Yorkton-based Sacred Heart Saints leading to the rematch with Oxbow.
“That’s back to back weekends,” said Fichter, noting their next challenge comes next weekend in Weyburn. “We took the title in Montmarte, we took the title in Estevan, so to sum it up my girls are highly motivated. They’re responding well. They do everything in the training. We’re doing strong extra conditioning. The girls are really into that and that’s an ugly part that athletes at this age don’t necessarily like, but they’re into it. They’re working hard to build stronger bodies and we’re obviously doing the right things in practice, so it’s going great.”
Reich said they were very consistent in their home tourney and didn’t give up on any shot, just like they’ve done all season long. She said they’ll fight till the end this year, but for now they just want to savour the longtime coming home tournament win.
“It’s really exciting,” said Reich. “It’s the last year for five of us (seniors). We’re just really excited because we’ve had some tough games the last finals the last two years. We’ve been really close, so it’s a nice feeling to finally get it.”
