The Lindsay Thurber Raiders senior boy's volleyball team has lofty goals this season.
A year after winning the 4A central zone championship and a bronze medal at provincials, they hope to take the next step and win the whole thing in 2024.
"Our expectations are pretty much as high as they can be," said head coach Travis Czainski. "We definitely want to win provincials this year and that's our goal but there's also lots of good teams out there. It's going to be tough but that's our goal."
It's certainly not going to be easy for the Raiders. Last year, Western Canada High School won the provincial title followed by Ross Sheppard out of Edmonton who took home the silver. Both are expected to be competitive once again.
Time will tell if the Raiders can beat some of the province's other top teams but for now, they're hoping the experience gained in last year's provincial tournament in Calgary will help them.
"I think that experience we had last year will help us a lot this year. It gives us the confidence we need and last year we weren't sure where we stacked up," Czainski added.
"We definitely will have a target on our back just with how many returners we have and the success we had last year. We talked about that as a group and I think we're ready to embrace that challenge."
This year they welcomed back seven players from last year's team including two in Grade 12 and five in Grade 11. In addition, they also have two other Grade 12 students who joined them from the junior varsity program.
Most recently, they're building off a successful tournament at the University of Alberta in Edmonton where they captured gold against 32 other boys teams from across the province. They beat Strathcona High School out of Edmonton in the tournament final.
They also beat the St. Joseph Falcons on Wednesday in the first league game of the regular season.
"We're looking solid so far and looking to improve off of last year," he said.
"I thought last year we were a little bit too outside heavy so we're focusing this year on spreading out our offence a bit more... In terms of playing style, I would say we want to be a scrappy team on defence and take care of the ball on our side. We also want to attack the ball with some pace."
