If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
After twice being rejected in his attempts to put away the College Heights Cougars, D.P. Todd Trojans power hitter Keiran Leboe made that third spike count. His overhead swat landed on a vacant piece of hardwood in the Cougars' court, triggering a Trojan celebration Saturday afternoon at College Heights gym.
They defeated the Cougars 25-22 in the fourth and deciding set to clinch the north central zone double-A boys volleyball championship. For the Trojans, who lost the first set 25-18, then won the next two, 25-23, 28-26, it was sweet retribution.
"It feels excellent, especially because last year they took us in our home gym," said Trojan middle blocker Ethan Donison. "Today we knew what was on the line and it was today or never. It was emotional waking up today knowing I'm not going to be playing in P.G. again. As a Grade 12, I'm glad we could go out on top."
Ryan Gaiesky, a Grade 11 setter in his first season with the senior team, was still playing on the Trojans junior team when the seniors were getting spanked at the provincial tournament a year ago, finishing 14th out of 16 teams. This time around Gaiesky knows his team has a legitimate shot at wining a medal. The Trojans will be ranked sixth in the province when they walk out for their first provincial match Nov. 26 in Langley and they'll be sharing a pool with the Cougars, who will be ranked eighth.
The five-foot-eight Gaiesky is one of the shorter members of his team, but his track and field background has put a powerful spring in his stride, which made up for the vertical challenges of a game where size can make a big difference. Gaiesky put down two solo stuff blocks for points near the end of the match.
"It made me like I was floating in the air, I didn't think I'd get my hands on them, to be honest," said Gaiesky. "It's going to be fun going to provincials. We're sixth-ranked and we're going to try to win a medal. I'm pretty sure we can beat the fourth and fifth teams."
The Cougars beat the Trojans last week in the final of the Duchess Park tournament and were counting on homecourt advantage to smooth a path to their second straight double-A zone title.
"Coming in we were pretty confident, we had a great warmup and we were feeing really good but I guess we got down on ourselves," said Cougars setter Jared Pritchard. "We had the lead in all the sets we lost at one point but our mental game wasn't strong enough this time. We missed up our serving at a couple of key points, it just wasn't one of our better days."
The teams were close in head-to-head matches all season and took turns beating each other in tournament finals. On Saturday, the Trojans used their height advantage to win key battles at the net. Grade 12 veterans Donison and the Molcak triplets (Colby, Hadyn and Joel) formed a formidable front-line wall and proved equally adept putting away points.
The Trojans have been guilty this season of turning on themselves verbally when things aren't working on the court and head coach Glenn Wong has focused on trying to teach his players to keep those negative comments to themselves. The power of positive thinking obviously worked.
"We executed our plan to not get emotional and played a controlled game," said Wong. "We were coasting during the season and I called them out about it. We have to play like we're going to win. It's something all the professional teams in town like the Cougars, Spruce Kings and UNBC Timberwolves know about and understand. If we want to be a contender, you have to act like a contender and play like a contender and they did that in this match."
The North Peace Oscars of Fort St. John captured the boys triple-A zone title, defeating the Prince George Polars 3-0 (25-21, 25-11, 25-22) in Saturday's final at College Heights. The Oscars advance to the provincial tournament in Langley, Nov. 26-29.
The double-A girls zone championship came down to a winner-take-all best-of-five match Saturday in Vanderhoof and the D.P. Todd Trojans swept the Nechako Valley Viqueens 3-0. Set scores were not available.
D.P. Todd is ranked fifth in B.C. Trojans setter and team captain Hailee McKenna said even though her Trojans hadn't played Nechako Valley this season they were confident they would win to lock up the lone provincial berth open to them.
"We beat them last year and we've had a pretty good season," said McKenna. "Eight of us on the team are Grade 12s. Our offence is really good and we rely on that and our serving is pretty good. It was really good in the zone final, one of our servers [Jane Pomeroy] went on a 10-point run."
The Brian Bird-coached Trojans were without starting power hitter Jenna Sutton, out with an ankle injury, but expect to have her back for the provincial tournament, which starts Nov. 27 in Mill Bay near Victoria.
