The Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) Junior Raiders hosted a 12 team junior boys' volleyball tournament over the weekend.
The tournament was split into two pools of six teams in each pool.
In the round robin, YRHS finished fourth with a 4-5 record. The Junior Raiders went on to defeat the Melville Junior Cobras in three games in the quarterfinals to advance to the semis against Brandon. The Junior boys took Brandon to three games in the final match to finish as tournament runners-up reports assistant coach Jimmy Mak.
Mak says the boys played well showing a lot of improvement with every game in their second tournament of the season.
The YRHS junior boys have 10 players on the volleyball team, Mak says. Everybody is learning the fundamentals of the game, he suggests. "They have to learn that before they can start playing competitive ball. Everyday they're learning the sport of volleyball, he adds.
The junior boys will play a tournament in Esterhazy before facing Sacred Heart October 20 to determine who will advance to the East Central District finals.
The Sacred Heart High School (SHHS) Junior Saints boys competed in the YRHS junior boys tournament. Coach Chad Holinaty says the young, very raw team showed a lot of improvement. "We certainly made strides from the course of yesterday's first game to the last game today," says. He admits there's still lots to work on but he saw many players growing and improving their understanding of the system. "Now that they understand that system we can hopefully let some of the individual skills come through," he says.
While there's still a lot of work to be done on individual skills, Holinaty sees a lot of potential in the players. "You can't coach height and that's one of the things we've got right now, so hopefully we can take advantage of some of that size," he point out.
The first tournament of the year for the Junior Saints presented an opportunity for players who came from four different schools, some of whom hadn't played volleyball before, to work together. He hopes to see some good things develop by the end of the season.
The nine junior players got lots of good court time and opportunity to play, Holinaty says. They will get better with more experience on the court.
