The expectations for a championship by Team South East at the Estevan 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games volleyball competition are high.
“We’re going to win the Games,” said Riley Singleton, coach of the female southeast volleyball team. “I coach the 14U (Oxbow Black Knights) club this year and the competition has been very strong particularly in the southeast, so we should have a very strong team in that sense, but all across the province it has been strong.”
The volleyball competition at the Summer Games will run July 27 to 30 and involve male teams featuring players born in 2001 or later and female clubs with competitors born in 2002 or later. July 27 is scheduled as a practice day for the nine provincial zone teams that will compete at the Games with matches running at Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) and Spruce Ridge Elementary School from July 28 to 30.
Nathan Johnson, local representative of the volleyball competition, said he has been regularly attending monthly meetings with representatives of the other sports to get ready for the competition in terms of budget preparation for equipment and officials among other expenses as well as get-togethers with members of various groups representing such topics as marketing and facilities to make sure everyone is on the same page. He said this preparation work is all in an effort to make sure once the competition starts the focus will be on the matches.
“There will be some high-level players,” said Johnson. “They’re younger, but for their age they should be really the top players in the province. Each district is getting to the tryouts here at the end of May and in June and then teams can train up until the Games at the end of July. So, there will be some good athletes here for sure.”
Patrick Winand, coach of the southeast male volleyball team, said they will be holding tryouts on May 28 and 29, but the locations will not be finalized until athletes pre-register with him to allow the coaching staff an idea of where the most interest in the team is coming from. He said the tryouts will involve putting the athletes through foundation tests involving such plays as spiking and serving as well as running through a series of game situation drills to see how they respond to different scenarios on the court.
Winand said the team will be engaged in plenty of training sessions after tryouts. He said they’ll also be travelling as a team to experience a professional volleyball match in Saskatoon this summer and even try their skills in a few exhibition games against some University of Regina volleyball players.
“We know that with a couple tournaments we’ve been to this year with club there is a lot of good teams out there,” said Winand, who currently coaches the White City-based 15U Wolves Volleyball Club. “Multiple sports are often an issue with some athletes because then they have to pick one for the Games and sometimes it doesn’t turn out to be volleyball. If we can get the interested players, enough of them, and enough people to come out to the tryouts, I think that we would fare really well at the Games this year.”
Tryout dates for the Team South East female squad have yet to be finalized, but they are expected to be held at Oxbow School. Singleton said he will be looking for players who regularly compete with a club team, but that is not a requirement.
“We plan to do the bulk of our training at Oxbow at the school,” said Singleton. It’ll be “some weekends in June and all through July.”
