Over the years, the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference volleyball championships have often come down to which team was at the top of their game at the right time of the season.
Most of the time, that translates into a team with a first-place regular season record coming away with the overall win, as expected.
But every once in a while, someone gets hot at just the right time and pulls off a string of upsets on their way to a storybook title run.
The Briecrest College Clippers were that team this past weekend in the ACAC men’s volleyball championship tournament in Fort McMurray.
Entering the event as the fourth seed in the South after putting together a 10-9 regular season record, the Clippers defeated the top team in the North Division, the third-seed in the North Division and the team with the best regular season record in the ACAC on their way to their first championship since 2010.
“We’re very thankful for the group of guys that we have on the team, we obviously have talented guys in each position and we talked all year about learning whether we're winning or losing and trying to peak at the right time,” Clippers head coach Nigel Mullan said as the team made the 10-hour journey home.
“Coming into the playoff run, we just felt like there was something that was starting to click a little bit where we were starting to understand what we were trying to do and what we can do as a team. We knew our strengths and what we needed to really focus on and it was just exciting to see it all come together in a crazy, crazy run.”
The Clippers went into the event knowing they were going to be in for some tough competition, but there was a caveat -- they had close matches during the regular season with the majority of the teams they’d face, and that was one factor that played into their confidence despite their pre-championship position.
Add that to the knowledge they weren’t expected to do all that much as the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, and all of a sudden all the pressure was off.
“You could see that it was going to be a real battle for anyone to pull it off, and for us to go in and understand that the pressure is on the higher seeds, that we just get to go and play and enjoy the moment, that was important for us,” Mullan said,
“Then we talked about whoever sinks into the moment the quickest could really, really push and create some pressure. And I thought that guys did a really good job of just preparing mentally and emotionally and being grounded with our preparation and performing at a really good level.”
That all led to Thursday night and a massive upset right off the hop as the Clippers defeated the 15-4 South Division top seed The King’s University in an absolute barnburner 25-17, 25-19, 20-25, 21-25, 18-16.
“We knew that Kings was going to be tough, they had some really good veteran players on that team and it was going to be no easy test for us,” Mullan said. “The number one seed carries weight to it and we thought if we could do a couple things at a high level it would give us an opportunity to push whoever we were playing.”
Things weren’t as close in the semifinal against the 12-7 NAIT Ooks on Friday night, as the Clippers rolled to a 25-18, 21-25, 25-17, 25-15 victory to book their spot in the final.
There, they’d run into a juggernaut in the perennial ACAC title-contending Red Deer Kings, who had a 17-2 regular season record, best in the ACAC.
What transpired would be a match for the ages, even if it only ended up going to four games -- Briercrest would take a 31-29, 32-30, 18-25, 25-23 victory to return to the Canadian Colleges Athletic Conference championship.
“We just really wanted to make sure that we were taking care of our side,” Mullan said. “That might be kind of a cliche, but we just really tried to work into that by being prepared, spending that time just understanding what makes us different and the skill set that we have.”
The Clippers will now turn their focus to facing the best teams in Canada when they travel to Toronto’s Humber College for the CCAA national tournament beginning Mar. 8.
“Right now the guys are just taking a moment and letting what just happened sink in and as we start to process that, we can start looking forward to that next chapter,” Mullan said. “Going to nationals we’re going to try and have that same type of mindset where we’re going to do what we can to be at the highest level that we can. The next part is just making sure that we're ready physically and recovered emotionally so we're ready for another stiff test, whoever that might be.”
