Raiders 3 Cougars 0
Notre Dame Cougars coach A.J. Mahoney suggested that the Lindsay Thurber Raiders came up big when it mattered most in a Central Alberta high school 4A zone senior boys volleyball playoff match Friday.
To Raiders coach Terence McMullen, that was a complete reversal of the manner in which his team performed 48 hours earlier in a 3-2 loss to the Hunting Hills Lightning in the opening match of the three-team city playdowns.
“That’s a huge turnaround for us because when we played Hunting Hills they played better on the big points,” said McMullen, after his team qualified for the provincial finals with a hard-fought 3-0 (25-23, 25-23, 26-24) win over the visiting Cougars. “We made that adjustment and I’m proud of the guys that they were able to do that in a short period of time.”
All three Red Deer teams finished at 1-1 in round-robin play, with the Raiders getting the first of two provincial berths as a result of finishing with a superior record of games won and lost during the zone playdowns.
The Cougars were set to host the Lightning at 9 a.m. today in a sudden-death match to determine the second Central zone berth in the 4A provincials next weekend at Calgary.
“Notre Dame was good tonight, they put up a battle,” said McMullen. “When you beat a team by only two points in every set you know one play can make the game go the other way.
“I thought it was a good match played on both sides and I’m pleased that we executed better than we did Wednesday and that we were fortunate enough to come out on the winning side.”
That no team has emerged as clearly superior during the zone round-robin competition was an indication of the parity among the three Red Deer squads.
“We’re fortunate that we do have that parity because it just makes every team stronger,” said McMullen.
“That game tomorrow morning is going to be a battle and I kind of feel sorry that we can’t have all three teams go (to provincials), but it doesn’t work that way.”
Mahoney said his club didn’t perform with enough aggression Friday.
“We played a little too tentative tonight, but tomorrow hopefully the boys show up and we’ll put in a better effort,” he said.
“We made a lot of errors tonight, our guys played scared. Thurber missed a lot of serves and gave us a lot of free balls and we didn’t capitalize on them.
“We just didn’t play our game and Thurber played an excellent match. They played tougher on the bigger points. We were up in the last set and we just couldn’t close it out. I’m not sure where my guys’ heads are at, but tomorrow we have to regroup and go hard.”
In girls 4A playoff action Friday, Notre Dame defeated Hunting Hills 3-1 (22-25, 25-9, 25-11, 25-17) to earn the top seed for the Central zone with a 2-0 record in round-robin city play. Hunting Hills (1-1) will go to the provincials at Edmonton Strathcona as the second seed.
Lindsay Thurber finished 0-3 in the city playdowns.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com