Volleyball Weekend: Beaux-Lacs’ take bronze as hosts, ENDHS 5th, Districts winners

ÉBL represented well as they hosted ASAA 1A Girls Volleyball Provincials.

The girls had to do it the hard way, but after an impressive second half of the tournament, École des Beaux-Lacs volleyball team found a way to earn bronze against zone rival in St. Jerome’s on Saturday evening.

Twelve teams competed at ÉBL and BCHS from Thursday to Saturday for the 1A crown, which pits small schools across the province against each other.

Beaux-Lacs rallied back from a winless pool play (the power pool with the top four ranked schools all together) to multiple do-or-die situations. They were able to stave off elimination, to play the first in their pool Bawlf, who they stunned on Friday evening in the quarterfinals.

That set up a semi-final against Vauxhall, who were the number one seed in the tournament.

The Attaque was out-sized, and despite putting some fear into the believed-to-be undefeated team, Vauxhall took the match in straight sets, en route to a gold medal showing.

“If our goal was to win gold in our house, we knew we’d have to play Vauxhall,” said head coach JF Bernier. “The girls practiced hard all year and prepared for those kind of moments, but when you’re in the game and you see that six-foot left side coming over the block — you don’t see that a whole lot.

“You have to make adjustments, I think we got better as the game went along…we had the second set at 19-19, they were feeling the heat, just sometimes at the very end it didn’t go our way.”

That set up the northeast zone final rematch against St. Jerome’s, which the Bonnyville school won to finish their season with another provincial medal.

With a loud and proud opening ceremonies, to the semi-formal banquet and dance at the Centennial Centre, Bernier gave credit to the team of volunteers who came together to make this Provincials tournament such a success.

“Hosting Provincials is a big undertaking, our volunteer and organizing committee did just a fantastic job. We had a vision, we all shared it, all seven of us, we worked lots of hours. But we wanted people to come to Bonnyville and say wow, you guys can really put on a show. You guys can put on a good event, and say, this is the best Provincials I’ve ever been to. And we’ve heard that.”

St. Jerome’s girls 4th place appearance. Image: STJ.

The St. Jerome’s boys won bronze.

ÉNDHS girls represent at first 3A Provincials

In their first year at 3A, Notre Dame girls earned their way to Provincials with a zones victory, and represented themselves well in Ponoka.

ÉNDHS beat Brooks Composite, but lost two other games in pool play. Notre Dame stayed alive with a win over Louis St. Laurent, but then fell to Cochrane on Friday evening.

Saturday was a strong day on the consolation side, with wins over Strathcona Christian and Brooks, to take 5th place at Provincials.

In other high school competition, FG Miller boys took home 8th place at 2A Boys Provincials

Junior High Districts

The Beaux-Lacs junior high girls keep up the winning ways with a first place finish at Junior High Districts this week. Dr. Brosseau’s boys won on the other side of the draw, and the Dr. B girls were silver medalists.