SUBMITTED
Erin Matthews and Morgan Lockyer played their second Alberta Beach Volleyball tournament at the John Fry Park in Edmonton Saturday. There were teams from all over Alberta in different age groups — U14, U16 and U18 — and both boys and girls. Matthews and Lockyer played in the U16 age group as first-years of this age group.
The day started early with a 7:30 a.m. check-in, and the wind howling at 50 km/hr. Serves into the wind stopped mid-air before hitting the net, and if you were hitting with the wind you had to adapt your serve so it wouldn’t fly out the back of the court.
Lucky for Matthews and Lockyer, there were five matches to watch before they played their first game, so they had time to figure out the wind strategies. The wind never let up the whole day proving to be a challenge for all the players in the tournament.
Matthews started the day serving first and got three aces. The other team had the ball for only one serve as Matthews received the serve passing to Lockyer and then Lockyer made a perfect pass back to Matthews, who placed it just right to score a point and get the ball back.
Lockyer served next doing the same as Matthews and scored three aces. The girls were just beaming at this point as they had a fantastic start to the day. They won this game 25-12, lost the next one 25-20, then won the last round-robin game 25-15.
Heading into the playoffs, the girls won their first game 25-10. The next game they played was against second-year girls who were 16, which they lost 25-9. They both had a couple of really good digs trying to hang on, but were just out-skilled in this match.
Overall the girls had an incredible day, winning four of six games, and finishing the tournament in sixth-place out of 36 teams. Great job!
Good luck to all the Sylvan players in the next tournament July 5 and 6, held right here in Sylvan Lake down at the pier on the beach volleyball courts.