November 17, 2007 - We were lucky
enough to start 16U division play in our own hometown at Gisèle
Lalonde HS in Orleans for the OVA 16U Girls Provincial Cup - Zone
F, and again we had the pleasure of watching the 16U CAPS when we
weren't playing ourselves. (Congrats on 1st place!)
The first match was against Mavericks
Gun Smoke. We won in straight sets, 25-18 and 25-20.
This included our first "foot ball" of the year, going off a foot
right over the net, and the other team caught the ball ... our point.
Nice start to the day.
The second match was against Pegasus
Fury. They came on like a Fury, a big strong blocking
machine, with well-placed serves and terrific defense. The girls
knew now that they were in a 16U tournament, and did very well to get
as many points as they did. With a valiant effort, they lost
13-25 and 16-25. Nice try girls!
The third match was against Mavericks
Outlaws, a huge team which ended in 2nd place. We were told
by a fan in the stands, that we did extremely well to get 14 and 17
points against them. So, despite another great effort, we lost 2
straight.
The fourth match was against Pegasus
Wings. We got out to a quick start, with some nice plays,
great movement and coverage, and held the lead all the way to 25-18.
The second set was neck-and-neck all the way, with the Wings pulling
ahead in the end: 21-25. The third set saw us down quickly -
3-8 at the split, but Coach Cathy did it again, with a timeout and a
few substitutions we pulled off a nail-biter: 16-14.
This put us 3rd in our pool. We had
to wait 3 hours to play the 3rd place team in the other pool, the
Mavericks Trail Blazers. The girls came out flat-footed and
never really got going, losing 18-25 in the first set. The
second set looked very promising when we jumped out to a quick lead,
19-9 ... then the wheels came off, and the serve-receive struggled,
leading to a 22-25 loss. This left us in 6th place
overall.
This was a good learning experience for
all. Thank you to Coaches, Cathy, Devon, and Yuri, thank you to
Rob Hammond from the 16U team for all these wonderful photos, and
thanks to the 17Us for hosting such an awesome
tournament!
