For the fourth time in five years, the Kelowna Owls are runners-up at the Big Kahuna B.C. senior AAA boys volleyball championship tournament.
After a five-set 3-2 loss (25-13, 21-25, 25-18, 18-25, 16-14) to second-seeded Semiahmoo in the title match, the Owls added a sixth silver medal to the Kelowna Secondary School trophy case, but were still unable to break the 63-year gold-medal drought that will continue to haunt them for at least one more season.
“It’s a tough one,” said Owls’ head coach, Mike Sodaro, after the defeat. “I wasn’t laughing on my first loss [in the provincial final], but I can laugh because I have four silvers now. I’m getting used to it, unfortunately.”
The Owls struggled to contain Semiahmoo’s dominant power hitter, Michael Dowhaniuk, throughout the match, but ultimately a myriad of things squashed Kelowna’s title bid – passing, in particular.
“I think we came out a little tight, and we got beat pretty bad in Game 1,” said Sodaro. “They were going hard — when you’re the underdog, you’ve got nothing to lose. We slowly recovered, but we struggled the whole match through, and came up just a little bit short in Game 5.”
“It was an uphill battle after losing that first set,” said Owls’ co-captain, Spencer Doody. “It seemed like we were always down one or two points through the whole match. When you’re ahead you can afford to take more risks, and you hit a lot harder. When you’re a couple of points behind, you play a bit more timid and you have a hard time staying loose. We had a lot of unforced errors. Passing, swinging, missed serves — we just weren’t able to put the ball away, weren’t able to pass.
"We were playing it safe, which really limited our options. We weren’t able to run middle at all. We had probably three or four good middle swings throughout the whole five sets. We burned our outside and right side hitters, and they picked up on it and blocked us out a lot more than normal. I think that’s what killed us.”
While silver was not the goal they had set out for, second in the province certainly isn’t a finish to be ashamed of, no matter how much it might hurt.
“The boys are pretty emotional,” Sodaro said. “They’re pretty upset. But the whole lineup played great and gave it their all. We had a lofty goal, and we came up just a couple points short of it. We just about had it. They had a great long year. Four silver medals in five years is still a great accomplishment.”
“The result’s not what we wanted, but second place is no reason to hang our heads,” said Doody. “I’m pleased with how we did. We put up a good fight. It was a tough loss, but when we put that much of ourselves on the court, we can’t really be too disappointed in ourselves. There wasn’t much more we could have done. It’s a tough way to end, but I’m still extremely pleased with how we all played. I know everyone put everything they had into the games. You can’t be upset about that.”
Of further consolation, Owls’ Grayson McMillan, Justin Peleshytyk, and Spencer Doody were all named tournament first team all-stars.
The co-hosts garnered two of the three medals up for grabs at the B.C. School Sports senior A girls volleyball championship tournament in Kelowna, but came up short in claiming the one they wanted most.
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Kelowna Christian School Knights, ranked No. 1 leading up to the 16-team provincial tournament held at KCS and Immaculata High School, settled for the silver on Saturday, dropping a 3-0 decision to the White Rock Christian Warriors in the title match.
The Immaculata Mustangs, No. 3 going into provincials, took the bronze on home court by defeating the Aberdeen Hall Gryphons of Kelowna 2-1 (26-28, 25-14, 15-10).
In what might have been the most exciting match of the three-day event, Kelowna Christian defeated Immaculata 3-1 (25-20, 17-25, 25-20, 25-18) in semifinal play earlier on Saturday at KCS for the right to advance to the gold-medal match against White Rock, ranked No. 2 going into tournament.
White Rock proved the dominant force early on, sweeping all three matches in pool play on opening day against their nearest rivals — KCS, Immaculata and Aberdeen Hall. The Lower Mainland representatives won their next four matches in the championship draw, including a 3-0 victory over Aberdeen in Saturday’s other semifinal.
The Knights had three players — setter Tenley Csolle and power Jessica Regehr — selected to a tournament all-star team, while Immaculata’s Ashlyn Day and Kate Johnson were also chosen as all-stars along with Aberdeen Hall’s Reilly Lorenson and Rebecca Reitsma.
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Seeded third going into the B.C.School Sports senior AAA girls volleyball championship tournament, the Little Flower Academy Angels rose to the head of the class to claim the gold medal on Saturday in Kelowna.
The Vancouver team swept the No. 5-ranked W.L. Seaton Sonics of Vernon in three straight sets (25-12,25-17, 25-19) in the title match at Okanagan Mission Secondary to claim the coveted BCSS blue banner.
Little Flower won seven straight matches and 17 of 18 sets on their way to the provincial title. They earned a berth in the final by sweeping the Timberline Wolves of Campbell River 3-0 in semifinal play Saturday morning.
The Sonics’ only losses on the weekend at OKM were to the Angels, who defeated them 2-1 in pool play on Thursday. Seaton reached the final with a 3-1 (24-26, 25-20, 25-15, 25-18) upset of No. 1-seed Brooks Thunderbirds of Powell River in their semifinal on Saturday.
Brooks downed Timberline 2-0 (25-17, 25-11) for the bronze medal.
Meanwhile, the host OKM Huskies finished where they were seeded — 11th — by downing No. 12 LV Rogers Bombers of Nelson 2-0 (25-17, 25-15) in their final match of the 16-team tournament.
Lady Owls place eighth at quad-A provincials
The Kelowna Owls dropped their final three matches to settle for eighth place at the B.C. School Sports senior quad-A girls volleyball championship in North Vancouver.
After winning two of three matches in round-robin play, the Okanagan Valley champions — seeded No. 5 prior to the provincial showdown — defeated the Killarney Cougars of Vancouver 3-1 in the first round of the championship draw, but lost to host Handsworth Royals 3-1 in quarter-final action.
On Saturday, the Owls dropped a 2-1 decision to the Mt. Douglas Rams of Victoria in consolation play and were shut out (21-25, 22-25) by the Mt. Baker Wild of Cranbrook in their final match.
The upstart Belmont Bulldogs of Victoria, a Vancouver Island wildcard team ranked 13th in the province, claimed the gold medal by upsetting No. 4 Handsworth 3-0 (25-17, 25-10, 25-22) in the championship match.
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