Submitted
The Sylvan Lake HJ Cody junior and senior girls volleyball teams stated their regular season with a fantastic evening on Sept. 16.
The night was hosted by both teams, with the juniors playing the Innisfail Cyclones first, then the senior team playing the Innisfail senior team. The stands were full of excitement for the season opener games. There were students and parents out to cheer on the girls teams in hopes of getting off to a great start to the season.
The JV team consists of Abby Tucker (1), Bailee Kentz (2), Jessie Stormoen (3), Meghan Meier (5), Morgan Lockyer (6), Ceanna Muller (7), Erin Matthews (9), Danielle Smith (10), Sara Vick (11), Regan Eisler (14) and Kaitlyn Simpson (17).
The JV Lakers got off to a great start beating the Cyclones 25-16. The next set was a close win at 27-25, followed by a lost set of 14-25, but again the JV Lakers came back with a 25-14 set to win the overall game.
Following the JV team was the SV team who also came out strong, winning a quick three sets in a row to win the game. This was an amazing start to both of their seasons and we hope to see them improve even more throughout the year.
On Sept. 20 the JV team was in Ponoka at St. Augustine School across from the Ponoka Stampede grounds. The teams in attendance were the host team Ponoka St Augustine Queens, Pigeon Lake Panthers, John Maland Wildcats (Devon), St. Dominics Huskies (Rocky), Penhold Crossing Skyhawks and our HJ Cody Lakers JV team.
The first game of the day was at 9 a.m. The Lakers played a total of 10 games throughout the day with two sets in each game. Out of the 20 sets they played in round robin, they only lost one set in total. This took them into the playoffs in first place.
The girls went in with great confidence and won their first game in a very quick two sets to zero. This took them to the gold medal game.
They won the first set but lost the next set with a very close score, taking them to the last tie-breaking set, in which they unfortunately lost, resulting in a second-place finish overall.
The girls should be very proud of themselves playing a total of 15 sets and only losing three the entire 11 hours they were there.
The girls on the team and the parents would like to say a very special thank you to Mr. Steadman for coming out and coaching the girls, as their head coach Mrs. Steinbach had her one-year wedding anniversary that day.
Good luck to both the JV and SV teams in the rest of their league games.