Sign up for the battlefordsNOW newsletter

Battleford Heat bring home provincial gold

Apr 25, 2017 | 2:00 PM

A full team effort made for a memorable weekend for the 13-U Battleford Volleyball Club Heat this past weekend, as they took home gold in Tier One of the Sask Volleyball Provincials in Saskatoon and Warman.

The Heat went undefeated in four round robin games, then narrowly took out the Saskatoon JCVC Fusion in the first playoff game, before topping JCVC Attack in the semifinals and Saskatoon HVC White in the finals.

The Heat won the gold medal game in two straight sets, 25-20, 25-18.

“I was so proud of the team,” said Heat co-coach Reagan Lavallee, who coaches with her husband Cliff. “We were one of the only teams that came with 12 players. Lots of teams have less. We came with 12 players and at this age it’s fair play, so whoever is on the bench in the first game, comes on in the second game and there’s no subbing players off in the first two sets, and we won that final gold match with all our players together.

“We were just so proud of the all the girls [with] winning gold, but also how they presented themselves and how we presented Battleford Volleyball Club.”

As it turns out, the finals and semifinals were not even close to being the toughest games for the Heat.

It was in fact the first playoff game, played at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, that went down to the wire. The Heat narrowly topped JCVC Fusion in the third set 17-15 to move on to the semifinals.

“There was a lot of emotion in that game,” Lavallee said. “There were really good hits on both sides and really good digs and long rallies. It was really intense and really exciting, but we pulled out the win.

“[It] was the most intense game of the weekend and probably, it could be, the most intense game all season long just because it was such an important game to win, to move you to the medal [rounds] or the best you could do was fifth.”

At one point in that third set, which is first to 15 points, the Heat gave up a 14-11 lead, allowing JCVC Fusion to tie it up 14-14. But in volleyball you have to win by two, and after going down 15-14, the Heat rallied off three straight points to sneak out the win 17-15.

They used that experience to make sure things weren’t as close in the semifinals against JCVC Attack, as they won the third set no problem.

They wouldn’t even need a third set in the gold medal game.

“Everybody stepped up and worked together to pull out that gold medal,” Lavallee said. “The team just comes together. They support each other. That’s what we’ve enforced and taught the girls right from the beginning. You win as a team, you lose as a team, and you support each no matter what. And the girls just gelled as a team and supported each other on and off the court. It was really nice to watch.”

In the gold medal game, the Lavallees chose Kalyna Bahler as the MVP.

“She was really, really strong that game for us,” Lavallee said. “She hit hard, she was strong defensively and offensively and she stood out to us.”

Last year, the Heat finished in sixth out of 19 teams at provincials.

Many players were very new to the sport, and so the result was a positive one.

Coming into this year, the coaching staff knew that some of the older teams had moved up an age group, which meant they knew there was a good chance for success. 

But they didn’t know it would be this good.

“Last year was the first year for the majority of the team playing volleyball at the club level and to come in sixth…that was huge for us,” Lavallee said. “We felt we would have a strong year this year, but it exceeded our expectations.”

Lavallee also coaches softball in the summer and took the Bandits U-12 team to a provincial ‘B’ title last summer. =

Four girls from this volleyball team were also on that softball team.

“Four of my players are able to say that they have a provincial gold in two different sports, back to back,” Lavallee said. “It was such a fabulous weekend with a fabulous group of girls and a fabulous group of parents. You can’t do it without the parent’s support either. Just a memorable season in general.”

 

 

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

@NathanKanter11