The 15U Canadian East Open in Sherbrooke was something that our team had been looking forward to all year.  Our team of ten had gone through a lot of ups and downs this season but after 16U Provincials, we realized that anything was possible if we worked hard.  Leading up to Nationals, the tension built - it was our last tournament of the season, and we had nothing to lose. We decided to pull out all the stops.

The trip up was uneventful with the Dads, the Beadles, McDowells, Hofmanns and Billings' making sure the team got safely  to Sherbrooke.  The first challenge of the weekend was to find Bishops University, the residence buildings and then room keys, but by 10:30 everybody had arrived and was getting settled.  It wasn't The Ritz, but we survived, and the breakfasts were good.

Friday morning began with our first match at the main university complex - so big, so many people, so many courts, the boys were amazing hitters and a bit overwhelming.  The 15U Girls division had 26 teams, including the top teams from Quebec and the Maritimes, as well as most of our Ontario rivals.   We took on Les Griffons (Outaouais), handing them consecutive defeats of 25-17 and 25-11.  We had a long break after that, which gave us time to move to one of the other venues just down the road, Ecole Secondaire Le Triolet.

Our second match was against the silver medalists from Ontario Provincials, DRVC.  Teams from the eastern suburbs of Toronto (Whitby/Durham/Ganaraska) are always tough - during the season we had come up against those teams 12 times and only managed 2 wins.  This time the end result was no different as we dropped the first set 25-15.  In the second set we learned that we could hold our own and with hard work from Leah and Sofia to get the sets up, our hitters kept up the pressure as the score see-sawed up to a 33-31 win.  But the third set was a bit of a disappointment as DRVC dominated, beating us 15-6.

Our hometown rivals, the Kangaroos were next, followed by the Oakville Thunder.  In both matches we ensured our 2nd place finish in the pool (behind DRVC) through coordinated hard work.  Again, the setters delivered, and Emily, Haley, Leah H., Megan, Karin, Caitlyn and Becky came out swinging.  The outcomes were: 25-22 and 25-14 against the ROOS, and 25-14 and 25-15 against the Thunder.  During the day more parents had joined us (Sims, McGeers, Kytes) and we made it into a local restaurant for a group meal just in time to miss the lineups.

Our Power Pool for Day 2 included the first place teams from Newfoundland and Quebec as well as our perennial foes, Durham Attack.  We knew it was going to be tough.  We were a bit slow in the match against Toronto West - the first 2 sets were close battles with no one team ever leading by more than a few points.  We took the first set 25-22 and then lost the second by the same score.  Things looked bad as the 3rd set proceeded, at one point we were down by a score of 4-9, then Megan jammed her finger and came away with a nasty joint sprain that purpled nicely and required lots of ice.  But we took them to the limit and prevailed 16-14.  It was the start of a beautiful roll.

The first place team from Newfoundland was next.  Like us, Islanders (Bell Island) had struggled against Toronto West but did not get the advantage of the nice rest break that we had, and we took the first set handily, 25-11.  The opposition toughened up in the 2nd set and came out fighting.  It was a very even game until 12-12, then 7 quick serves by Caitlyn (my Dad made me put this in), and big work at the net by Leah H. sewed things up and the Islanders never recovered.  The final score was 25-14.

We were pretty nervous leading up to our next match, against Libellules (Jolliette) - they are notorious for producing amazing volleyball teams - skilled and organized on the court.  Libellules went out quickly and got ahead of us, but we stayed organized and climbed back, trading points up until a 17-17 tie.  Then, as in the last match, 5 quick points - this time served by Leah B. - put the game out of reach for a 25-22 victory.  With our confidence boosted, we jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the 2nd, held on and were still leading at the midway point 14-8.  Then, thanks to a lengthy service string by Karin, we ran it out in dominant fashion to a final score of 25-10.

The last match of the day was against the always tough Durham Attack, a team with lots of talent.  In the first set the teams were never separated by more than a few points until the end, when we pulled ahead and handed Durham a 25 -21 loss.  The second set started poorly and we quickly found ourselves down by 7 in the early going.  However we quickly pulled ourselves together and battled through long rallies with great kills by Haley, Leah B. and the rest of the hitters, as well as impossible digs and steady passing by Lauren and Becky.  We fought our way back to be tied at 18s, and then pulled ahead to win 25-21.  Winning all our matches, being tops in our pool and assured of a Top 8 finish in the tournament made for a pretty special day.  We were excited and nervous as every game from now on was going to be a must-win situation, and we knew that DRVC was the first of those challenges.  With the addition of the Carters and Sturovas, our team dinner was a pretty big group but some of us were too excited and distracted about the next day to fully appreciation the evening.

Sunday, quarter finals, taking on DRVC - did we really have a chance to pull this off?  Did anybody believe it was possible?  Usually we start slowly in the mornings but on this day we didn't and jumped in front to a 25-21 win.  DRVC was not going to go down easily though and we struggled a bit in the second set, ending up with a 19-25 loss.  As with a number of our tight matches on Saturday, it looked like trouble as the 3rd set began and we were down 3-7.  Again, our resolve and character shone through, we were able to put up the point-winning combinations and prevailed 15-13!

The semi-final match was against Elan from Quebec City.  This match was somewhat of an anticlimax, our opponents struggled through the first set and lost 25-16.  We led throughout the second set as well, at once point leading 18-8 before the final score of 25-16 established our right to go for the gold!  The finals were against a well known and feared rival, the Vipers  from Scarborough.  They are a team that is big in all senses of the word, including hearts.  There has been a good bond between our teams - we're all pretty good friends.  Although we had not played against them this year, we knew that they were one of the best 15U teams in Ontario.  Last year, as the Solars, they had proved their abilities to out-hit, out-serve and out-block us.  But we also knew that we had changed since then and that our skills, hard work and desire could payoff for the ultimate prize.  The first set started off well - we were leading 13-9 at one point until the Vipers responded with 8 unanswered points to take a 13-17 lead.  We fought back to tie things at 17, but then fell behind again and traded points.  We had a chance at 21-24 after a great block, and it look like a win might be possible, but it was not to be and we lost 22-25.  In the 2nd set we fell behind, staying a few points down throughout the set until the very end.  With the score at 20-23 we knew we had to put it together or it was all going to be over.  As before, we stepped up and delivered when it was needed, winning 26-24.  So the match, the tournament and the season would all come down to the last 15 points.  We came out strong at the start and jumped out to a short-lived 5-0 lead.  The Vipers came back and we were at 8-6 at the split.  The end of the set could not have been closer, tied at 12s, then tied at 13s, then 14s and 15s as well.  Now the match, the tournament and the season was down to 2 points.  Clearly these were evenly-matched teams.  We fought hard, but the final score was 15-17 in favour of the Vipers.

It didn't take us too long to get over the disappointment of losing such a close match.  We had proved ourselves as the Vipers' equals and we were happy to take the silver and congratulate them on gold.  During the medal ceremony Sofia and Emily had the well-deserved honour of being named to the All-Star team.  Congratulations!

Overall it was a pretty amazing run: at the end of January we had won less than 50% of our matches (11 wins, 12 losses), and by the end of 15U Provincials we had won 21 and lost 20, but between 16U Provincials and Nationals we won 14 matches and only lost 4.  Our final season record was 35 wins and 24 losses.  Over the 10 tournaments we came away with 1 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze medal.  A silver at Nationals is a fantastic achievement that all players contributed to and it was especially sweet, given the struggles we had encountered during the season.  It was a great season ladies - can't wait till next year.

Thanks to all the coaches who worked with us, Jen, Shawna, Newton, Diana, Everton, Cathy and, of course, Matt.  Thanks also to the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers for their continual support and for making sure that we had everything we needed.  You are all gold medalists to us!

Top Eight Standings - Volleyball Canada 15U Girls Canadian East Open: