Dave Morin
Senior Girls Volleyball Coach
The GP Vanier Vipers attended the 2A Volleyball Provincials in Fairview, Alberta during November 23-25.
Although the end result was a one-win and four-loss record it doesn’t really show how competitive the girls were. The tournament started out well as we won 25-12 and 25-13 on Thursday against Christ The King from Edmonton.
The match was preceded by the opening ceremonies and followed by a wonderful banquet where the young ladies had a chance to get dressed up for a formal affair.
Friday morning saw us play Acme and this was probably the only match where we didn’t play very well losing by scores of 23-25 and 17-25. The next match would be against Vauxhall (who would go on to win the Silver medal), the girls played very well and actually had a good lead but couldn’t hold on as the inexperience of playing in “Big” games started to show through losing 21-25 and 18-25.
The late Friday game saw us play against Vegreville (who would play in the Bronze medal match), a little bit of doubt seemed to be in the girls minds. They felt they were letting down their teammates, coach, families and school (who were watching on closed circuit TV) as we started out slowly losing 16-25.
But after the first set I got the girls mindset back on just playing to the best of their abilities and we started out well again and took a lead but were unable once again to hold on and lost 21-25.
Saturday morning saw us faceoff against Strathcona Christian Academy with a chance to get into a tie-breaker with a win. As we typically have done we started out slow in the morning game and lost the first set 19-25.
We had a long discussion during the break between sets, and I told the girls how proud I was of them and that no matter what the record was they proved that we belonged with the best 2A teams in the Province.
The girls put everything they had into the second set and came away with an exciting 27-25 win forcing a third and deciding set.
The girls played so well and so much confidence and built an early 10-3 lead.
Strathcona mounted a big comeback and took a 14-13 lead, we came up with a huge block to tie the score at 14-14 but ultimately lost the next point and then with Strathcona serving with a chance to win the young lady hit a serve right down the line and it landed on the line.
The final point hitting the floor ended our opportunity at securing a spot in the tie breaker and ending a wonderful run.
It is with mixed emotions that I say goodbye to these young girls. Some of them – Chloe Paradis, Camille Pele, Kennedy Turcotte and Shanele Morin – I have started coaching since they were 13 years old.
I have coached quite a few girls through my seven years at GP Vanier and hope that I have helped these young ladies enjoy their High School sports as they move on to bigger and better things.
My time as head coach is now over and someone else will undoubtedly pick up the torch and lead the next group and I wish them nothing but success.