The Estevan Comprehensive School Elecs senior boys’ volleyball team are welcoming six clubs to the school this Friday and Saturday for their annual home tournament, which will serve as a prelude to the school hosting regionals in two weeks.
Nathan Johnson, head coach of the Elecs, said tournament play will start at 3:30 p.m. Friday when the Elecs square off against the Weyburn Comprehensive School Eagles. From there Estevan will play five games over the next 24 hours against teams from Melville, Oxbow, Carnduff and two clubs from Yorkton in an attempt to finish top-four in the tournament and secure a spot in playoff action Saturday evening.
“We play with lots of energy,” said Johnson. “We’ve got some kids who really work hard and play hard on defence and we’ve got enough kids who can put the ball away too. We’ve got some guys that can really hit it and we serve tough.
“We look forward to the competition this weekend. It’s a seven-team round-robin tournament with lots of strong teams coming, so it’ll be a fun weekend.”
The Elecs head into the tournament after already playing in Regina, Weyburn, Swift Current, Oxbow and Moose Jaw competitions as well as a few home and home exhibition contests.
Johnson said their record to this point is about .500, but the young squad continues to improve. He said the team is made up of three Grade 12 athletes, three Grade 9 kids and six Grade 11 players, and the hope is this group will finish first at home this weekend.
“Oxbow has had our number this year, but we’d like to have this be the weekend when we can overcome them,” he said. “Melville has a really strong team over there too, so hopefully we can challenge the top teams this weekend and the goal is always to win.”
Two weeks after the home tourney ends, the Elecs will play host to the 5A South Regional Tournament on Nov. 14. The seven-team tourney will bring clubs from Weyburn, Yorkton Regional, Moose Jaw Peacock, Moose Jaw Central, Swift Current and Balgonie to the school who, other than Swift Current, will all be vying for a top two finish to make it to provincials. Swift Current is hosting provincials and automatically has a bye.
Johnson said regionals will be pool play to start, so their fate may be decided on which pool they end up in. However, he said they should still be right in the mix.
“At this point our expectation is to qualify for provincials. Seeing the team we have this year, I think that is a reasonable expectation.”
