December 15, 2007 - The 16U CAPS
traveled to Welland, Ontario for the OVA 16U Girls McGregor Cup -
Tier 1 on Friday, December 14th. We entered the tournament
ranked 9th based on the results at last year's Provincial
Championships, with a goal of improving our Tier 1
position.
Pool play saw us facing the #1-ranked
Waterloo Tigers in our first match. We came out with a
strong start, winning the first matches in straight sets: 25-11,
25-19. Up next were the girls from DRVC. Another
strong start and two more sets went our way by scores of 25-19 and
25-12. At the end of pool play, we were first in the "A"
pool.
Ending in first position gave us a two-game
break before the playoffs. Our parents were getting increasingly
concerned about the state of the roads after the expected monster snow
storm. With no snow in sight, we headed into the playoffs
against the #2-ranked Georgetown Impact. The girls from
Georgetown showed us early how they earned their number 2 rank and,
although we battled hard, the Impact prevailed by scores of 25-17 and
25-22.
After consultations with coaches from all
four teams advancing to the semi-finals (since three of these teams
had to travel more than 4 hours to get home), a decision was made to
allow us to play our final match of the day an hour early. With
a 5th place finish on the line, we faced the #4-ranked South County
Bandits. The Bandits came out strong in the first set - at
one point posting a seven point lead. That lead held and the
Bandits took a very tight first set, 28-26. The second set was
equally exciting, but this time we prevailed by a score of 25-20.
The third set was point-for-point and the mid-point of the set saw the
Bandits with a two-point lead at 8-6. We were down but not out
however and, with strong play in the last half, we managed to take the
third set 15-13.
That final match victory gave us a 5th
place finish, improving our position for the next tournament.
With the weather in mind, we headed home right after the game and
managed to make it back to the Nation's Capital before the 40 cm of
snow! Thanks again to coaches Linden and Bruno and to our
parents for getting us to Welland and back safe and
sound.
- Emma Armstrong #12
