It wasn’t all that long ago that winning a provincial medal of any kind in the sport of volleyball was a longshot for Moose Jaw teams.
Middle-of-the-field finishes were more common than not, and just getting into the medal hunt was a sign of huge success.
No longer, and the Sask Volleyball 15U provincial girls championships offered the latest example.
With close to 50 teams taking part in the tournament in Saskatoon, the Thunder Creek Volleyball Club had a pair of teams finish in the top 11, while the Golden Ticket Volleyball Club landed in the top 15 as Moose Jaw teams continue to develop and improve to the point that success is expected.
The TCVC Thunder went unbeaten on their run through Division 2, winning six straight to claim gold in Tier I. The TCVC Lightning took the court in Division 1 and finished eighth overall, while Golden Ticket won bronze in Division 2 Tier 2.
“To have two 15U teams and have both of them do as well as they did is amazing,” said Thunder Creek head coach Lorne Polupski. “One winning a gold medal and the other finishing eighth, that’s a pretty good weekend and we’re really happy with how things went.”
For the TCVC Thunder, it was nothing but success right from the opening game.
After posting a 4-0 record in their pool, the Thunder battled to a 23-25, 25-19, 15-13 victory over the Toppers En Fuego in the Division 2 Tier I semifinal and then claimed gold with a 25-8, 25-23 victory over the Regina Cougars.
Golden Ticket wasn’t far behind, as after finishing 3-1 in the same pool, they lost their first Division II playoff game 25-17, 25-19 to the Huskie Elite before defeating the BVC Storm 11-25, 25-17, 15-11 and winning bronze.
The TCVC Lightning were the best of the bunch, though. A season of success saw Lightning playing in the highest division, where they put together a 1-3 round robin record and moved on to the Consolation playoff. There, they’d take a 25-14, 29-27 win over Rose Valley and claimed eighth overall in the province after falling 25-19, 25-20 to the Yorkton Blitz Elite.
“I think you want everybody to peak at the right time and sometimes teams peak at the middle of the season, sometimes they don’t peak at all and we were just lucky enough that our teams peaked at provincials,” Polupski said of how the success came about.
“We have good coaches, too, some people who have been coaching for a lot of years, so that’s key when you want your club to be successful. If you have that, it’s a lot easier to succeed and that’s important for us.”
Teams from both clubs will now move on to the Canadian championships across all age divisions over the next two weekends, and medals will once again be the goal. It can happen, too -- it was only a year ago that the TCVC U15 girls brought home gold in Division 3 from the Volleyball Canada club tournament.
“Winning gold last year was incredible, but this is volleyball, you never know what can happen,” Polupski said. “So we’ll go out there and play our best and see what we can do and maybe we’ll bring home another gold medal.”
