Vauxhall volleyball Queens hold court at provincials

By Greg Price
Vauxhall Advance
gprice@tabertimes.com

The Vauxhall Queens girls volleyball team came back from Vegreville with a record of 2-3 at 2A provincials this past weekend.

“It was a good tournament. It was a good experience, and I thought the girls played really, really well. We beat the teams we should have beat and lost to the teams we should lose to,” said Scott Reiling, head coach of the Vauxhall Queens girls volleyball team.

The Queens were in the royalty of provincial contenders as every team that finished with a medal were in the Queens’ pool in Spirit River Regional Academy (Gold), Rimbey (Silver), and Edmonton Christian (Bronze).

“We pushed Edmonton Christian to three sets which was exciting for our team. They weren’t quite as strong as last year when they won provincials, but they were still a really good team,” said Reiling. “I didn’t really know how tough of a pool it really was. Edmonton Christian won Tier I in Edmonton and Jasper Place won 4A and Edmonton Christian beat them in the semifinals in Edmonton. Rimby had already beat the who’s who around the province and were not intimidated by anybody and Spirit River was very long and skilled.”

Playing against provincial medalists in pool play, it was the mini runs that the Queens allowed that led to their three match losses.

“We let all those teams go on mini runs where they seemed to have those one or two servers that too much pressure on us and we’d give up five or six points real quick,” said Reiling. “But, it was a really good week for the girls. We got to see where we were at, and what we needed to get to.”

The year 2016 marks the seventh straight season the Vauxhall Queens qualified for provincials.

“We were going up there to do the best we could, and as a coach, I think we did. We didn’t drive home thinking ‘oh we let that one go’ or ‘if I had done that, or if so and so had done this,’ we might still be playing,” said Reiling. “We had the three best teams in the province in our pool and we put a scare in one of them. I’m hoping for next year, we can look at this week and with our youth, they can see, this is the next level. Where the game is from even three years ago, it’s changed a lot. I think we are ready to take that next step. This was a team that was so much fun to be around in practice, and they got along so well, it’s sad to see the season being over.”

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