When the North Peace Oscars have Tristen Burridge blasting the ball from the front row and back, they're tough to beat. When the rest of the Oscars get in on the act, the team becomes darn near unstoppable.
The Kelly Road Roadrunners made that discovery in the championship match of the senior boys volleyball triple-A zone championship tournament.
In the best-of-five contest for zone gold, played Saturday night at Prince George secondary, the Oscars swept the Roadrunners 25-18, 25-17, 25-19. Burridge, a Team B.C. player in the summer months, supplied the punch in the Oscars' offence but had plenty of help from teammates Kooper Shallow, Andrew Stewart and Brady Fedderly.
"This was our best weekend, for sure," said North Peace coach and former Prince George resident Darcy Hoff. "I think we had our most balanced offence -- it wasn't coming just out of two players so we got a lot better match-ups against the other teams' blocks."
Burridge, in his Grade 11 year, was named MVP of zones.
"He's just really polished," Hoff said. "He really can do it all."
The Roadrunners had Team B.C. member Mitch Duthie hitting bombs for them and got secondary offence from Jordan Thorkelson. But, at times, the passing of the Roadrunners let them down and they tended to wilt under the North Peace pressure as each set progressed.
The Roadrunners had beaten the Oscars at a D.P. Todd tournament earlier this month.
"With that spark, I thought they were really going to play us a little tougher this weekend," Hoff said. "I don't know if they got tired, but they're definitely not as deep as we are. It could have been fatigue on their big guys."
The Oscars, from Fort St. John, defeated the Roadrunners for the zone title and provincial berth for the second year in a row. North Peace will compete at the B.C. tournament Dec. 1-4 in Kelowna. Hoff said the team -- which has only three Grade 12 starters -- will be gunning for a top-10 finish.
