High school and college volleyball season is warming up as the Oak Bay Barbers won the Camosun Chargers-hosted Senior Boys Fall Classic high school tournament at the Pacific Institute for Sports Excellence on Saturday.
Despite losing a few key players to graduation from last season, the Barbers are playing like the defending high school provincial champs that they are. The Barbers breezed undefeated into the final against the Pacific Christian Pacers, and defeated the Pacers 25-16, 25-11.
Barbers player Elion Wong was named the most valuable player.
As a smaller school, the Pacers also came out looking good as they only lost to Oak Bay.
Head coach Charles Parkinson of the Chargers organizes the tourney as a recruiting and development tool for local and B.C. volleyball, and has used it to find many a Charger in the past.
“Every year we turn over five or six players, as Camosun’s college programs are predominantly two years, whereas a lot of our competition (colleges) have longer programs” he said.
And this year is no different.
“Overall it’s a good recruiting year from Victoria especially, better than years previous,” Parkinson added, with three locally produced players and three college transfers coming in.
“We’d like to get every single athlete we need from Victoria, but the pool just isn’t deep enough,” Parkinson said.
Joining the Chargers from South Island this year are Oak Bay’s Ryan Marcellus at setter, Claremont’s Lochlan Polson in the middle and Lambrick Park’s Lucas Dellabough on the right side.
“Dellabough is a perfect example, he was the MVP of the Fall Classic last year,” Parkinson said. “I chatted throughout the season with him and he decided not to play basketball but to come here and focus on volleyball.”
Marcellus teams up with elder brother Garrett, the team captain, now in his fifth year with Camosun. Garrett, also an Oak Bay High grad, is in the fifth year of his accounting degree and final year of eligibility.
Also coming in are college transfers Robin Smith of Whitehorse, coming from Red Deer
College, Adrian Best of Grand Prairie, coming from Grand Prairie College and James Cameron, who was studying at volleyball-free UVic.
The Chargers season begins at PISE on Oct. 12 against V.I. University. In the meantime the men’s team has added two days of CrossFit into their training week until the season starts.
Senior Boys Fall Classic
The tournament uses the same format as the high school volleyball provincials. Preliminary pools feature teams that are highly ranked playing against each other right off the bat. This year’s tournament featured locals Oak Bay, Reynolds, Belmont, Pacific Christian, Stelly’s, Claremont, Lambrick Park and Parkland, with visitors Wellington (Nanaimo), Lord Tweedsmuir (Surrey), G.P. Vanier (Courtenay), Dover Bay (Nanaimo), Ballenas (Qualicum), Sequim (Wash.) and Riverside (Port Coquitlam).
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