The College Heights junior A Cougars stood tall to stick around in the winners' bracket of the junior boys provincial volleyball championship but eventually fell short to the defending champions.
A straight-set (25-15, 25-22) loss to Mennonite Educational Institute Eagles eliminated them from title contention Friday afternoon on the court in West Kelowna.
"It was a tough loss, the best we can do now is fifth," said Cougars head coach Ryan Thibault.
"The first set was not our best showing but the second one was a good tight game. Unfortunately we didn't come out on top."
MEI was ranked fourth in the province heading into the tournament, while the Cougars were eighth going in. The Cougars went on to play Jaffray Friday night to try to qualify for today's fifth- versus-sixth playoff. Jaffray lost its quarterfinal to Langley Fundamental.
College Heights went 3-0 in pool play, then defeated Claremont 2-0 (25-8, 25-16) in a playoff match.
On opening day Thursday, the Cougars A team scored wins over Saint Ann's (25-13, 25-14), George Elliot (25-17, 25-11) and Walnut Grove (25-17, 25-21).
"They've been playing great, I feel we peaked at the right time," said Thibault. "We just matched up with a tough team in the quarterfinal team, but throughout pool play and our playoff game we played great."
In other results, the College Heights Cougars B team went 1-2 in its pool and was matched against the D.P. Todd Trojans in a placement round game Friday, while the Duchess Park Condors faced Constable Neil Bruce in another placement match.
In pool play, the B Cougars lost to Pacific Academy (15-25, 14-25) and Claremont (21-25, 20-25) then beat Constable Neil Bruce (17-25, 25-10, 15-7).
Duchess Park suffered an opening loss to Delta (8-25, 15-25}, lost to Kelowna (19-25, 21-25), then defeated Penticton (26-24, 25-19).
D.P. Todd dropped its first three matches, losing to Prince of Wales (23-25, 8-25), MEI (10-25, 9-25) and Princess Margaret (13-25, 22-25).
