The VIU Mariners raised their game to a level that no other team could match and won the national championship.
Vancouver Island University’s women’s volleyball team won gold at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association championships in Charlottetown, P.E.I., defeating the Garneau Élans in Saturday’s final, 25-18, 25-22, 20-25, 25-19.
“I can’t stress how proud I am of the girls and how hard they worked,” said Shane Hyde, VIU coach. “All year long, the ups and downs we’ve had, we just got stronger and stronger.”
That was the case at the tournament, as No. 6-seeded VIU had to get past the No. 3- and No. 2-ranked teams to reach the final against the No. 1-ranked Élans. Garneau and VIU had actually met in exhibition play in Hawaii mid-season and had bizarrely run out of gym time there with the match tied two sets apiece.
“So jokingly, me and their coach had said that the fifth set will be determined at nationals,” Hyde said.
Saturday’s gold-medal match played out like a heavyweight bout, said Hyde. His team won the first two sets, then Garneau took the third. But in the decisive fourth set, the Mariners showed they had another level, winning some marathon rallies.
“There were huge bombs that we were digging up and then recycling it with a good transition hit on our end that they would dig up,” Hyde said.
Kelsey Johnson simply would not let the ball fall, Chantal Cumming made her sets look effortless, Tylar Turnbull was powerful in the middle and Megan Rosenlund was painting the corners of the court with her kills.
“Every one of our players were playing out of their minds,” said Hyde. “We said all year that it would be scary what it would look like if everybody was on and that’s what happened.”
Rosenlund made the championship-winning kill on match point and the Mariners got to celebrate a perfect ending.
“As the season went on, we started to really understand what it was like to be a Mariner and the attributes that we’d need…” Hyde said. “They all just had each other’s back and all the hard work that we did on and off the court with our goal setting and our team cohesion and all that kind of stuff, and our skill, it all just kind of came together.”
Turnbull, at her last-ever college volleyball tournament, was named MVP. Rosenlund and Cumming were selected first-team all-stars and Mikayla Wagner was a second-team all-star.
VIU won its quarterfinal match Thursday, defeating Briercrest 25-27, 25-22, 23-25, 25-22, 15-9, then swept past Humber in the semis 27-25, 25-17, 25-16.
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