The Moose Jaw high school boys volleyball league semifinals played out pretty much as expected on Thursday night, and now the top two teams in the regular season will be doing battle for a city championship.
Both the Vanier Vikings and Assiniboia Rockets emerged victorious from their respective semifinal battles after finishing one-two on top of the regular season standings, setting up another epic showdown between the two teams.
The Vikings -- who finished atop the league standings with a perfect 10-0 record -- had the easier trip to the final, rolling to a 3-0 victory over the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons at Vanier.
Vanier had swept the Falcons in both league match-ups and were just as strong Thursday, winning 25-15, 25-8, 25-21 -- but it wasn’t all perfect in head coach Levi Broda’s eyes, especially with how things went in the third set.
“We showed some elements of our best that we can do and some elements of some things that we have to work on,” Broda said. “Credit to Cornerstone for making us work the whole game and making us realize what we have to work on, too.”
Development and improvement have been a key focus for Vanier all season as they look to return to the upper echelon of 4A boys volleyball in the province. The next step in that process will come Tuesday night at Sask Polytech in front of what promises to be a loud cheering section from both teams.
“We’ve been lucky in that we’ve developed a lot throughout the year and found a lot of chemistry, so we’re just continuing to learn as we go,” Broda said. “There’s been a lot of development this year, combined with some high expectations, and we’ll just keep working to improve.”
The Rockets had a slightly tougher trip to the final, needing four games to take a 3-1 win over the Central Cyclones in Assiniboia.
The Vikings lost a single set all season in league play, and as it happens, it was to Assiniboia. That’s on top of a barnburner first set between the two teams in their opening meeting, which saw Vanier take a 34-32, 25-21, 25-20 victory on Sept. 27. The Vikings prevailed again two weeks later, taking a 25-10, 25-21, 16-25, 25-19 win in Assiniboia.
The result from Assiniboia wasn’t known at the end of Vanier’s win over Cornerstone, but Broda expected a tough battle from whoever they played in the final.
“Whoever comes out of that one, we know it’s going to be a really good game next week and we’re looking forward to it,” Broda said. “We’ve battled each other really well on the tournament circuit throughout the year as well, so whoever we have to face we’re going to have to earn it… we’ll be going in there expecting a long night.”
First serve in the city final is set for 8 p.m. Tuesday at Sask Polytech.
