A flat start to the bronze medal game was too much to overcome for the Brookswood Bobcats who just missed a podium finish.
The Bobcats senior girls volleyball team was competing at the Fraser Valley AAA championships, where they dropped the third-place game to the Rick Hansen Hurricanes on Monday afternoon at the Langley Events Centre.
The loss was disappointing as the Bobcats had beaten the Hurricanes earlier in the regular season.
“They struggled to rally back and got beat by mental errors,” said coach Janet Wiens. “Definitely not one of our better games.”
But the fourth-place finish was still enough to qualify the ’Cats for the provincial championships, which run Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 at Delta’s Seaquam Secondary.
“Qualifying for provincials wasn’t really a surprise because if the team played consistently well, I felt we could finish in the top four in the Fraser Valleys,” Wiens said.
What did surprise the coach was a second-place finish in league play, thanks to a 6-2 record, with both losses coming at the hands of Seaquam and Clayton Heights, who finished one-two at the Fraser Valley championships.
The ’Cats are a young squad — they boast just one Grade 12 and also have a Grade 9 and a Grade 10 player on the roster — so Wiens knows the experience they gain this year will only help them next season when the majority of the roster is in their final season.
“Being a young team (and) getting provincial exposure will only make us a force to be reckoned with next year,” she said.
Brookswood did land one player, Nicole Chevrier, on the all-star team.
And Wiens predicts great things to come for her Grade 11 star.
“She’s like a sponge; she takes in everything she’s shown, taught or told and applies it,” Wiens said.
“And she has a natural gift to read what’s happening in the court and to adapt to it, a trait that cannot be taught.”
“For a Grade 11 player, I predict she will dominate in both high school and club volleyball,” she added.
