The College Heights Cougars are going for gold.
They booked themselves a spot in the double-A boys provincial volleyball championship in Langley after a five-set semifinal victory Friday over the No. 1-ranked Pacific Academy Breakers of Surrey.
Ranked sixth out of 16 teams at the tournament, the Cougars lost the first set 25-12, took the next two, 25-20, 25-20. The Breakers rallied to win the fourth set 25-22 to push College Heights to the limit and the Cougars prevailed 15-11 in the final set.
College Heights will face the Langley Christian Lightning in the championship final today. The Lightning, rank No. 2, defeated the MEI Eagles of Abbotsford 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-17, 25-23) in the other semifinal.
The Duchess Park Condors faced George Elliot of Winfield Friday afternoon for the right to play in the fifth-place playoff. That result was not available on the tournament website.
Meanwhile, at the triple-A girls provincial championship in Kelowna, the fourth-ranked Prince George Polars were eliminated from title contention Friday after they lost 3-0 (25-14, 28-26, 25-21) to second-ranked Timberline of Campbell River.
"We had a rough start and we weren't able to get anything going," said Polars head coach Allan Tong. "They were solid, not a lot of errors at all and they did a good job on defence, passing the ball up and scoring points on us. Early in the first set when we fell behind by quite a few points, eight or nine of the 12 points they got were a result of our errors.
"The second set we were also behind but we caught back up. We had opportunities for game point a couple of times but just couldn't close it."
The Polars started the day Friday with a 3-2 (22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 18-25, 15-12) win over No. 7 Crofton House of Vancouver. PGSS will face the loser of Friday's Little Flower Academy-Mark Isfeld match in a playoff for fifth place today at 10:45 a.m.
The Duchess Park Condors are also in the triple-A championships and they started playoffs Friday with a 2-1 (25-22, 22-25, 15-11) triumph over Matthew McNair of Richmond. The Condors were then eliminated from a crack at the medal podium when they lost 3-1 to North Delta. Scores from that match were not available. Duchess Park will meet Okanagan Mission for ninth place today at 9:30 a.m.
At the double-A girls championship in Abbotsford, the D.P. Todd Trojans lost their first championship round game 3-1 (25-18, 25-13, 23-25, 25-11) to St. Michael's of Victoria. The Trojans will meet David Thompson of Invermere in a consolation-round playoff today.
