Kim Matthews
The Sylvan Lake 16U Wave volleyball team was in Edmonton at the Saville Center last weekend for the Girls North Premier #1 tournament. There were a total of 32 teams from Sylvan Lake and north all the way to Northern B.C.
Saturday had the girls starting at 8 a.m. for the round-robin. They won two of the three games in the round-robin portion of the tournament, resulting in a second-place finish in their pool. This put them into the A side of the playoffs.
Saturday evening at 5 p.m., they played the crossover match against last year’s top-six Pandas team, resulting in a loss of both sets. Both sets were played really well and were close at 25-22 and 25-19.
Sunday morning saw them face some very strong teams, which they played very well against. Overall, the team placed 14th out of the 32 teams competing, which places them in Division 2 for the next Premier tournament in March. There, they’ll join both the North and South teams for some more great competition.
Throughout the weekend, there were some amazing power hits by Shae Boyes, Erin Matthews, Erin Leidl and Annessa Parcels. This group of hitters kept the other teams scrambling all weekend, and were ‘killing it!’ The setting was done by Amy Busch and Morgan Lockyer, who really kept the play moving, setting up the hitters. The main passing was done by Braxton Orantes and Bailey Kentz as the liberos on the team, landing pass after pass right to the setters. Playing right side was Rebeka Reynolds, who had some strong hits. The front line on the net playing middle were Paige Hagel, Leah Hagel and Regan Eisler, who all had some incredible blocks this weekend, ‘stuffing’ the other teams time and time again.