BY KIM MATTHEWS
Last week, the SLVC Wave U15 team travelled to the Ponoka Warriors midget girls Family Day mini tournament.
This was a very well hosted tournament. Kudos to the Ponoka teams that put on this great event. There were teams from Battle River, Wetaskiwin, Rocky Mountain House and Ponoka.
The U15 girls, consisting of Erin Matthews, Morgan Lockyer, Alyssa Cosutta, Paige Hagel, Leah Hagel — all from Sylvan Lake, Shae Boyes from Eckville, Jordyn Shewchuk, Kendall Janssen, Alicia Janssen, Mikayla Janssen — all from Innisfail, (missing were Ali Blaine and Shayla Veldcamp, also from Innisfail), won their first three games two sets to zero, and on their last game they won one set and lost the second set, but won by points.
This left them coming out of the tournament for their age group in first place. Coaches Eric Brinker and Rick Boyes were really happy with the team’s performance. Their defence for the tournament was outstanding and the coaches really commend the girls on their hard work in practice as it really paid off.
The following weekend had our team in Calgary for its first premier tournament of the season with 25 teams from between Red Deer south to Lethbridge.
The girls started the weekend in F pool, putting them in about 20th place in the seeding. We lost our first game but then won the next three games in a row, and that put us second in our pool.
This placing then put us in division one for the rest of the tournament and our first cross over game was against the winner of the A pool.
We didn’t fair very well against this team. The girls had some amazing returns and saves during the game, but just not enough to pull off a win.
We then lost our next two games as well, but again the girls really held their own having not played any teams of this calibre before.
In the end, the Sylvan Lake Wave U15 finished tenth out of 25 teams, so they should be very proud of their performance.
We must commend them on their sportsmanship and for keeping a smile on their faces.
Great job and good luck at the next premier tournament March 15 and 16.