Richard Froese
South Peace News
A new youth volleyball club has hit the courts in the combined High Prairie and Falher-McLennan region with players from surrounding areas.
Big Lakes Barracudas Volleyball Club is playing its first full season.
The club was initially formed in 2021 by Krystina Dubrule as a club for youth in the High Prairie and Big Lakes Country region, says Jordan Taylor, a current coach and former board member.
“Krystina did an amazing job building the club into what we see today,” Taylor says.
He adds the vision for the club best states the purpose of the sports program.
“The vision of the club is to continually promote volleyball and personal excellence for each athlete and lifelong love for the game in a caring, respectful and supportive environment,” the vision states.
Currently the club has teams in U-12 co-ed, U-13 co-ed, U-14 girls, U-16 girls, U-18 girls, U-16 boys and U-18 boys.
“We currently have 80-90 players signed up,” Taylor says.
“We have players from High Prairie and the surrounding area, McLennan, Falher, Valleyview, Peace River and Red Earth.”
After tryouts in December 2021, the club started its first season in January 2022.
The club season runs from November to until May.
He says the club recruited former high school volleyball players, parents and other volunteers to coach the teams.
Parents of players are pleased to have a local club.
“From comments we have received, parents are happy that there is a local club for youth who have had to travel to Peace River to play before,” Taylor says.
“It allows them to stay local, cut down on travel while giving them access to competitive volleyball and all at a reasonable registration rate.”
He says the club is grateful for community support to encourage more players.
“We have relied on community donations to keep fees down,” Taylor says.
The club has its eyes on building the program.
“Our plan for the future is to just continue to focus on creating a fun competitive volleyball environment for our youth while promoting the game to younger children to help build a solid base of players for future years,” Taylor says.
Several teams will compete in provincials in the coming weeks in Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary.
Club volleyball is played in Volleyball Alberta sanctioned tournaments, which are called premiers.
In provincials, teams are seeded based on their results from premiers and move up and down in tiers based on performance.