The Central Cyclones and Vanier Vikings both booked their spot in the hunt for the medals with a solid showing through the first day of competition on Friday at Central and Vanier, with Central going 3-0 in Pool A and Vanier 2-1 in Pool B
For the Cyclones, it was as good a start as they could have hoped -- three straight wins without dropping a set.
Central opened the tournament with a 25-11, 25-20 win over Humboldt before downing Melville 25-22, 25-14 and closing out the day with a 25-20, 25-19 victory over Saskatoon E.D. Feehan.
“We’re happy,” said Cyclones head coach Cal Carter. “We’re not playing at our ultimate peak just yet but we’re getting it done and it’s coming along. The ball is falling for us on our side of things right now, but we know we have a lot more to do and a long way to go yet.
“There are a lot of good teams here and we’re just lucky to start (3-0), but it could be the other way, too, with how good everyone is.”
Central is guaranteed a top-two finish in their pool, with only first place left to be decided. That will happen at 10 a.m. on Saturday when they take on Meadow Lake, who are also unbeaten thus far.
“I think we’re still improving along the way and our seniors are playing well, and we’ll need that the rest of the way,” Carter said. “They’re not getting down, they’re resilient and we’ll take this good start. There’s still a long way to go so we’ll have to keep it going.”
Vanier ended up in a pair of absolute barnburners, losing their opening match 14-25, 25-13, 15-12 to top-seed North Battleford John Paul II and following with a 25-20, 25-23 victory over the Peacock Toilers. That set the stage for a critical battle with Melfort to close out the day, with Vanier winning 20-25, 27-24, 15-8.
“Oh my gosh, you know you have to battle every point and it’s still a mental game, but you have to be able to execute when it’s close and we were able to do that.” said Vanier coach Levi Broda after the win over the Comets. “I was really proud of the boys to dig deep. We made some uncharacteristic mistakes, but it was great to see the boys battle back. It was a super fun day, you have to earn every point and it’s going to be a battle.”
Vanier closes out their round robin against Tisdale at 11 a.m. Saturday, and they’ll be looking to keep the momentum going for the tough games ahead.
“We’ll see how it goes, but any cross-over game is going to be a challenge… after that first loss we knew we probably had to run the table and we’ve taken care of that so far, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow,” Broda said.
With the top four teams from each round robin pool advancing to the playoff round, Peacock is also still in the hunt despite their 0-3 start. They lost 25-13, 25-20 to Melfort to kick off their run and fell 25-18, 25-13 to North Battleford in their final game of the day.
The Toilers are back in action against Tisdale at 9 a.m., with the contest likely deciding which of their teams advance to the playoffs.
North Battleford holds down first in Pool B at 3-0, with Melfort and Vanier tied at 2-1 and Tisdale 0-2.
The playoff round begins at 12:30 p.m. at Vanier and Central, with the semifinals set for 3 p.m. at the two schools. The bronze medal game goes at 4:30 p.m. and gold medal contest at 5:30 p.m., with both those games at Vanier.
You can follow along with all the scores at www.shsaa.ca.
