While happy to have medaled, the Langley Christian Lightning were hoping for a crack at the gold medal.
But a semifinal loss derailed those hopes, sending the senior boys’ volleyball team to the third-place match at the B.C. AA volleyball championships over the weekend at Kelowna’s UBC Okanagan campus.
The Lightning won the bronze with a straight sets 3-0 victory over Duchess Park.
Langley Christian’s league rival, the MEI Eagles, won the gold medal.
The Eagles had beaten the Lightning during pool play and MEI won three of the four matches this season against Langley Christian.
“We were hoping for one more crack against them,” admitted Lightning coach Jesse Zuidhof.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance.”
And the coach felt it was the team’s own undoing which cost them the opportunity to go for the gold medal.
“We played not bad; we just couldn’t finish when it counted in the semifinals,” he said.
Against College Heights, Langley Christian was up 2-1 before their opponent stormed back to win the last two sets, relegating Langley Christian to the third-place match
MEI was ranked No. 1 going into the tournament while the Lightning were seeded second.
Tyler Heppell — whom Zuidhof called “awesome” — and Mitchell Jarvie were selected first-team all-stars for their play in Kelowna.
Joel Kleingeltink was a second-team all-star and Mark Antoniuk won the most outstanding libero award.
Antoniuk won the top libero award for the second straight year.
