It's been a good year so far for the Estevan Comprehensive School girls junior volleyball team as evidenced by some success in their invitational tournament last weekend.
The Elecs only lost a handful of sets en route to a third place finish, but lost in the semifinal to the eventual champion Yorkton Raiders 25-19 and 25-18. The other semi had Lampman defeating Fort Qu'Appelle's Bert Fox School.
“I anticipated these teams to make it to the top four,” said Elecs head coach Tamara Franklin. “When you're at this age, it's a mental game.”
The Elecs were 7-5 in their sets to earn third. They swept Carnudd (25-21, 25-17), Radville (25-19, 25-9) and Bert Fox (25-19, 25-20) and split with Moosomin (25-22, 24-26). Lampman (22-25, 14-25) and Yorkton (15-25, 17-25) beat them in straight sets. Lampman won the tournament with sets of 25-20 and 25-17 over Yorkton.
Both Yorkton and Lampman were the strongest teams in the tournament.
“Yorkton has a strong offence, strong serving and a strong attack,” said Franklin. “All we could do was just play the defence. They even mentioned that, we have a strong defence, and that's OK but you also need a strong offence to execute. If you want to be successful, yes you need defence but you also need to be able to execute plays. You also have to have a strong attack.”
The timing is what it'll take for the team to get to the next level.
“And recognizing where the other team is not, and just playing smart ball,” said Franklin. “You don't have to hit hard, you just have to see where the holes are and where the weak spots are.”
Next weekend, the team will head to Balgonie for a tournament.
In a few weeks, the Elecs will be off to districts, which is as far as junior volleyball goes. Lampman hosts that tournament on the second weekend in November.
