The Ballenas Whalers senior girls volleyball team has finished up its season after finishing tenth at the girls AAA volleyball championships.
The games were held at Seaquam Secondary Nov. 28-30. It was a competitive tournament that saw the girls struggle to catch up after a tough start.
The Whalers squared off against College Heights of Prince George, who finished third in the tournament, and came up short in their first test. Up next was Point Grey out of Vancouver, the eventual fourth place finisher, and it was much of the same for the Whalers in that contest as well.
“Unfortunately, we did not have a good start to the tournament,” said coach John Phillips. “I don’t know what the problem was but we just did not play with much accuracy. Poor passing led to poor setting, which led to weak attacking. We had a tough time trying to score points or side out.”
On day one Ballenas finished third in their pool after beating Brookswood. On Friday morning, the Whalers played Little Flower Academy, who were the defending champions.
“I was pleased to see our team play like we have demonstrated throughout the season. We were determined to play better and we wanted to win this match to advance into the top eight.”
In the best of five match the Whalers lost 23-25, 25-15, 15-25, 24-26. It was a close battle that saw the Whalers charge back in th fifth set from being down 11–22. The Whalers took a 23–22 lead but couldn’t quite shut the door on the defending champions.
The seniors then went on to defeat Terry Fox (Vancouver) 2-0, Clayton Heights (White Rock) 2-0 and lost their final match to Duchess Park (Prince George) 0-2.
This marks the end of the line for five Ballenas Whalers. Megan Bell, Nicole Lublinkoff, Shea Peachey, Kaila Parhar and Aly Gould will all be graduating this year.
“Overall, it was a great year. The girls were a wonderful group to work with. Megan was by far our best player at the B.C.’s, she had a great tournament,” Phillips said.
Ballenas will host the AAA girls provincial volleyball tournament in 2014.
— Tyson Taylor
