The Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) senior boys hosted a 10 team senior boys' volleyball tournament over the weekend. Senior boys' coach and tournament coordinator Dion Pfeifer says it was a very good, high quality tournament. Any one of the 10 teams could have won the tournament, he suggests.
The top four teams in each pool advanced to the quarter finals. "The cross-over in the quarter final was very tough no matter who you played," Pfeifer claims.
YRHS finished the round robin with a 4-1 record, the same as Brandon, Crocus Plains, but ended up in second place on the tie breaker.
The Senior Raiders crossed over to meet Estevan in the quarter final. Playing very well, the Raiders won the match in two straight games 25-10 and 25-16 to advance to the semi-finals. "We had very strong blocking, serving and attack. We passed the ball very, very well. That was probably our best match of the tournament. It was good to play them well against them as they're going to be here again next week end competing for a provincial spot," Pfeifer reports.
P.A. St. Mary claimed the semi-final match in two games, 25-14 and 25-14. Pfeifer suggests his team which played very well in spurts may have been a little intimidated by their opponents. "We had a 6-0 lead in the second game and kind of let them back into it and they kind of rolled from there," he states. The Senior Raider passing and setting wasn't quite up to par in the last match," Pfeifer adds.
Various players stepped up in different matches throughout the tournament, Pfeifer says. Jason Blommaert had a very consistent weekend. Kostas Karachalios and Ben Redl were very strong in the middle. Daniel Mandzuk set very well at times. Stephen Hutton played very well as libero all weekend. Hutton and Blommaert were the most consistent players during the weekend, Pfeifer adds.
In preparing for the regional tournament, the Raiders are going to work on hitting. "Our timing is a little bit off with our setter right now. Our middle hitters and our power hitters are going to work on a timing thing so we can get some one-on-ones instead of having two blockers against us. We have to get our hitters in sync with our setter a little bit more," Pfeifer explains.
This weekend eight teams including the YRHS Senior Raiders will be at the school to compete in the southern regionals. All will be looking to earn a berth at the provincial championship tournament at Carleton next weekend. The top three teams will advance to provincials.
There will be one match for each team at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Friday.
Saturday the tournament will begin at 9 a.m. with playoffs to follow in the afternoon, Pfeifer reports.
Admission for the event will be $5 for the full weekend of top level high school boys' volleyball.
Pfeifer expects to finish in the top three teams and advance to provincials. The tournament will be very competitive, he expects. Moose Jaw Central will probably be ranked Number 1 with the YRHS ranked second and Estevan third. "Any of those three teams would compete for gold and the bronze," he predicts.
