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Celtics best in B.C. |
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Written by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff
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Sunday, 30 November 2008 |
Janina Toljanich of the St. Patrick Celtics, left, hits a ball past the blocking of Natalie Botteselle of the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints during the gold-medal match at the double-A girls high school volleyball provincial championship tournament. The Celtics won the match, played Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre, in five sets. (David Mah)
The Celtics established themselves as champions Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre when they pulled themselves out of a deep hole and beat the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints in the final match of the double-A girls high school volleyball provincial championship tournament. The Saints took the first two sets 25-23, 25-19 but the Celtics rallied to win the next three, 25-20, 25-16, 15-10 in front of about 500 noisy spectators, many of them players from the other 14 teams in the event.
"We just have Celtic spirit," said Grade 12 setter Lorayne Mercado, who played a brilliant and inspired final for Vancouver-based St. Patrick. "Before we entered the gym we saw that banner and that trophy and we knew that we wanted it. We never gave up, not for one second. We never doubted each other. We trusted and we believed.
"It's amazing (to win)," added a gushing Mercado, who was later selected as a second-team tournament all-star. "Oh my gosh, I don't even know what to say about it. It's amazing."
Suzanne Byrne, a Grade 12 outside hitter for the Celtics, claimed the most valuable player award. Byrne wasn't the least bit surprised that she and her teammates found a way to win after being down 2-0 in sets.
"It's something we always do," she said. "Even if we don't start strong, we always finish strong. And we all believed it and we all wanted it. It was definitely a team effort.
"I definitely trusted my team. We all knew that we were going to win, and it was ours."
While the Celtics kept themselves alive by winning the third set, the real turning point in the match came in the fourth. The North Vancouver-based Saints were leading 6-5, but, on the next point, they were whistled for being out of their proper rotation. The Celtics were awarded a point, and a long delay ensued as St. Thomas Aquinas coach Chris Spence discussed the matter with courtside officials. A similar stoppage happened after the teams were tied 7-7. From that point forward, all the momentum the Saints had built up drained right out of them. Sensing the mood change, the Celtics won the next four points -- two on clean kill shots and two on STA errors -- and went on an 8-1 run to take a 15-8 lead.
"It was unfortunate we had the rotation call in the fourth game," Spence said. "It really gave my kids a bit of confusion. It's unfortunate, because it looks like (the officials) made a mistake on the rotation. We just had trouble rebounding from that. But, St. Pats played a great match. I thought we played a great match too. It was just not enough in the end."
Spence explained the rotation situation as follows.
"We made a substitution and my team wasn't 100 per cent sure which server was supposed to be serving, so we asked the ref who our next server was. They told us it was No. 5 (Anita Restivo) and we thought it was supposed to be No. 4 (Keeley McBride). We said, 'OK, we'll listen to you' and then (Restivo) went back to serve and they immediately go, 'You're out of rotation.' I'm like, 'How can we be out of rotation? You just told us it's supposed to be (Restivo) serving.' They said, 'No, it was the time before you were out of rotation and we just caught it now.'"
The confusion and the resulting debate about the St. Thomas rotation left a small shadow on the match, but, ultimately, the Celtics did what they had to do to win. They got shining performances from Mercado -- who scored several points by hammering the second ball to open spaces on the Saints' side of the net -- and from Byrne and middle blocker Justine Moore. Whenever Mercado was able to set up Moore, rallies were almost guaranteed to end in a point for the Celtics.
On the other side of the net, the Saints were led by setter Kaila Faminoff and by the powerful arm swings of Katie Crawford and Restivo. Crawford, daughter of former National Hockey League coach Marc Crawford, is only in Grade 10 and was her team's most dangerous offensive weapon.
The Saints came into the tournament as the No. 7 seed. They had been ranked third in B.C. for most of the season but were upset by the St. Thomas More Knights in their zone championship tournament.
The Celtics and Saints were placed in the same round-robin pool at provincials. On Thursday, the first day of the tournament, the Saints downed the Celtics in the maximum three sets, 25-20, 17-25, 15-12.
"That kind of gave us a wake-up call, that we needed to keep pushing and keep going and play with fire," Mercado said.
"(The Saints) deserved to be in the final. We have so much respect for them and that's why we played our best game."
Prior to provincials, the Celtics also beat the Saints in the championship match of the B.C. Catholic championship tournament. In the best-of-three final, the Celtics won 15-13 in the third.
Earlier Saturday at the NSC, St. Thomas More defeated the Fraser Valley Christian Falcons 25-23, 25-20 to win bronze.
See page 12 for final tournament standings and awards.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 30 November 2008 )
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