Determined Mount Sentinel finishes volleyball season with bronze medal
By Bruce Fuhr
For five seniors Saturday’s bronze medal victory in Kelowna culminated
hours of work in the gym, time riding on the bus to attend tournaments and
months of late nights completing homework after practice during the senior girl’s volleyball season.
The Wildcats made their last game a memorable one after scoring a three
set victory over Southridge of Surrey Saturday at the BC High School A Girl’s Volleyball Championships at Immaculata Gymnasium in the Central Okanagan City.
Mount Sentinel, ranked third overall entering the tournament, defeated Southridge 24-26, 26-24, 16-14.
“The last two years for all five seniors was about preparing for “an opportunity” to win a blue banner,” said Mount Sentinel head coach Joe Moreira.
“We didn’t achieve our goal, but we are so proud of our effort and commitment to this singular goal; a somewhat silly goal, but laudable nonetheless.
“We did everything we could have.”
Moreira said the bronze medal match was an “incredible” played match delivered by both teams.
Southridge was trying to avenge an earlier loss during round robin play to the Wildcats while the Kootenay reps were simply trying to put a nice finishing cap on what has been an great season.
In the end, Mount Sentinel’s seniors were able to deliver the school’s tenth bronze and 17th medal in the program’s history.
“The score is very indicative of the match,” Moreira said.
“The is the type of match that both teams deserved to win and we were lucky to win it,” he added.
Mount Sentinel opened the tournament Thursday in power pool play losing to
Langley Christina 15-13 in the third game.
The Cats were able to bounce back to edge tournament host Immaculate 15-13 in the third game of the three-set match before defeating Southridge to
advance as the top seed in the pool.
“Had we lost, we would be seeded fifth after power pool play . . . our pool was that close,” Moreira explained.
Seeded first, Mount Sentinel breezed through Friday play dumping 16th seed Ebenezer quite comfortably 3-0 in the best-of-five and eighth ranked Cedars Christian, also 3-0.
“We lost in the fourth and it seemed every time we created an opportunity
to push back we couldn’t keep our serves in the court,” said Moreira.
Saturday’s bronze medal match concluded a six-year journey for three
players Malin Chernoff, Kyra Makortoff and Madia Rehwald.
The trio started playing the sport in Grade 6 at Brent Kennedy Elementary and were provided a solid foundation for the program since for the past years.
The other two seniors graduating are Lexi Tarasoff and Allison Perepelkin.
The bronze medal increases the school volleyball medal count to four gold, three silver and 10 bronze.
Host Immaculata defeated Langley Christian 3-2 in the best-of-five final to capture the provincial title.
Next year, in 2015, the tournament returns to the Kootenays as Mount Sentinel as the host school.
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