By Nathan Kanter

Junior girl Vikings claim district championship

Nov 7, 2016 | 11:00 AM

It was one of the most impressive volleyball teams in recent memory – a straight nine team – and they did not disappoint at the district championships in Medstead this past week.

The Comp Vikings junior volleyball team played so strongly on Thursday, in fact, they were never forced to play a third and deciding set, defeating every opponent they faced in consecutive sets en route to clinching the battle west district championship.

“It feels great,” Vikings head coach Jeff Gibson said in a phone interview over the weekend. “We didn’t let a lot of balls hit the floor and we didn’t sort of shoot ourselves in the foot with our service game like we did at JP [last week] but the hitting attack was just unbelievable. I was really proud of them.

“The most impressive thing was the hitting was outstanding. The girls put on a bit of a clinic.”

The Vikings won every tournament this season except one, and in that one defeat they still finished third while playing against some Grade 10’s.

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Last weekend, there was an epic showdown in the finals of the north conference playoffs between the cross-town rival Vikings and Crusaders, hosted at JP II. The match went to a third set, where the Vikings narrowly prevailed 15-11.

At districts, the Vikings took down JP II in the semifinal in straight sets, before defeating Unity in the final.

“Both of those teams, there is significant reason to feel pretty pleased and proud of ourselves,” Gibson said. “With the JP semifinal, you know they really took it to us in the conference play and then with Unity last year, they beat us and it didn’t sit well with our girls – they were pretty upset.”

Crusaders head coach Janet Benoit was also proud of her girls, as they finished with bronze after defeating Macklin in the third-place game. She was thoroughly impressed with the improvement she witnessed over the course of the season, particularly from her younger players.

In the semifinals, Benoit said the difference was an inability to fend off the Vikings attack at the net.

“The last time we played them we were able to block a lot more than in [this] semifinal game,” Benoit said. “I think that hurt us in the end. And again, attacking. Being able to attack more probably would have made us more successful.”

Gibson explained that when the Vikings’ attack game is on cue, as it was this past week, it forces the opposition to focus only on defence. Essentially, a strong attack ends up trumping a strong defence most of the time.

“If you hammer the ball hard at a team, even if they play the ball up – which a lot of the time they were unable to – they’re having to freeball the ball back over the night, as opposed to attacking back at us,” he said. “Every time you set up a free ball for a team that has the hitting attack like we do, we just keep hitting it back at them. So it really puts teams on their heels.”

Next season, Gibson will be moving up to help coach the senior volleyball team. His daughter, Avery, already plays on the senior team. That means Bryan Cottini, who coached the Grade 8 team, will take over coaching duties for the junior comp team next season.

Benoit said she will be back coaching in some capacity, but isn’t sure whether it will be with the junior team or not. Either way, she knows the experience her five Grade 8 players gained this season is invaluable.

“I’m really looking forward to next year as they will be that much older and stronger going forward,” she said.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11