This pipeline never ruptures.
Every year, the Prince George Youth Volleyball Club serves as a reliable conduit to the post-secondary game. This year, the talent is flowing in unprecedented quantities.
Ten graduating members of the club have secured positions on college or university teams for the upcoming season. They are Trevor Zemlak, Mitch Duthie, Riley Young, Wayne Woyciehouski, Austin Cromarty, Tristen Burridge, Stephanie Welch, Erika Morris, Mackenzie Bouchard and Brooklyn Seemann.
"Every one of these kids is an example of what you can do when you set your mind to it," said club president Dan Drezet. "Through good coaching with their high school coaches and their club coaches, and a lot of hard work, they've put themselves in this position. There's something to be said for having some goals to shoot for."
Zemlak (outside hitter, D.P. Todd secondary), Duthie (outside hitter, Kelly Road) and Young (outside hitter and libero, Correlieu of Quesnel) will all be in uniform for the College of the Rockies Avalanche, a Cranbrook-based team that competes in the PACWEST Athletic Association.
Woyciehouski (middle blocker, College Heights) will play for another PACWEST club, the Vancouver Island University Mariners of Nanaimo.
Cromarty (outside hitter, College Heights) will suit up for the Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference and Burridge (outside hitter, North Peace of Fort St. John) will take his talents east to the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds.
On the girls side, Welch (libero, Duchess Park) will join the local male contingent at the College of the Rockies.
Morris (outside hitter, PGSS) will start her post-secondary career with the Camosun College Chargers, a PACWEST team based in Victoria while Bouchard (libero, Duchess Park) will head to Edmonton to join the Concordia University College of Alberta Thunder of the Alberta athletic conference.
As for Seemann, she'll play NCAA Division 2 volleyball for the Simon Fraser University Clan of Burnaby.
Drezet has been involved with the volleyball club for about a dozen years and said he can't recall a year in which so many club graduates have moved on to post-secondary volleyball at the same time.
"I think the successes that we're having now, we're seeing because of some of the things we've done," he said.
"We changed our format a few years back. We used to have several rep teams -- we call them Kodiak teams -- in each division and we've brought that down to a maximum of two. We just wanted to have more quality and I think that's helped. And we've done lots of work with our younger kids in our Bears [house league] programs."
Drezet also said Volleyball BC camps hosted by the club and the annual Six Pack and Thompson Rivers University WolfPack camps have played huge roles in player development.
The volunteer-run volleyball club had a membership of about 450 players this past season and is near its capacity because of gym and coach availability. But the numbers could climb higher if the club is successful in adding a new playing option next season.
"Fourteen- and 15-year-old boys, we would like them to have their own league, which I think would be a huge success," Drezet said. "There's a huge push from Volleyball Canada to get more boys playing."
