The Vanier Towhees are competing at the B.C. AAA boys volleyball championships in Langley.

The Vanier Towhees are competing at the B.C. AAA boys volleyball championships in Langley.

Vanier Towhees finish sixth at B.C. boys volleyball championships

Braydon Brouwer named first team all-star at AAA boys tournament

There’s no shame in losing to the best.

And that was the case for the G.P. Vanier Towhees at the 2014 B.C. AAA High School Boys Volleyball Championships, held Nov. 26-29 at the Langley Events Centre.

The Towhees advanced to the quarter-finals of the 20-team event, where they fell 3-11 (21-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-17) on Friday morning to defending champion Earl Marriott Mariners.

The Mariners went on to defeat Oak Bay 3-1  in the semis, then Kelowna 3-1 in the final to win their second straight B.C. AAA title.

The loss to Earl Marriott dropped Vanier down to the placement bracket. There, they defeated Gladstone 2-1 (25-23, 20-25, 15-9) to advance to the game for 5th/6th against Fraser Heights. The Courtenay crew dropped a 2-0 (26-24, 25-23) decision to take sixth place.

After finishing third in Pool F with a 1-2 record, the Towhees defeated Van Tech (second in Pool G) 3-2 on Thursday afternoon. It was a nail-biter, with the scores 18-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-16, 19-17.

In pool play, Vanier lost to Fraser Heights 15-25, 25-22, 10-15; beat Delta 25-21, 25-20; and lost to Gladstone 19-25, 15-25.

The Mariners proved a double thorn in the Towhees’ side, as Earl Marriott’s Devon Cote denied Vanier’s Braydon Brouwer a second straight Spike Contest crown.

In the third and final round of the competition, Cote edged Brouwer (who was named to the first all-star team) by an extremely narrow margin on the spike-ometer reading.

 

Reaching nearly to the top to the scale – in the “King Kong” range – both players were right there, with Cote slightly registering a higher shot right at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

Comox Valley Record