Great year for Grade 9 team

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This article was published 08/12/2015 (3816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It looks like volleyball at River East has a solid future.

For the second year in a row, the River East Collegiate Grade 9 girls volleyball team took home the Grade 9 provincial championship with a big win at home on Nov. 29.

The win was a welcome one for the River East squad. In the divisional final earlier in November, River East fell to their northeastern rivals Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute, a team they couldn’t quite get the best of all season.

“They had our number,” said head coach Jeff Spark. “All our losses were to MBCI. Luckily we didn’t get them in provincials.”

River East took home the championships in two tournaments this season, one at home and one in Portage la Prairie. They lost in the finals twice to MBCI, once at Kildonan East Collegiate’s tourney and again on MBCI’s home court.

Spark credits the team’s success this season to dedication and hard work.

“They seemed to bond really well together as a team, which was huge in the game of volleyball,” he said. “They’re a very dedicated, hard-working team with a lot of height. Tall and aggressive at the net.”

Refining their mind game was also key.

“I stress, as a coach, the mental aspect of the game,” Spark added. “How do you block out some of the things that cause you not to do well.”

River East took on Arthur A. Leach Junior High in the provincial final, winning the best of three set match 25-20, 20-25, 15-11.

“It was a pretty big team effort,” Spark said.

The home court final also offered the River East squad an opportunity to raise some money for a worthy cause.

“One of the parents of one of the girls does a lot of work with charitable organizations,” Spark explained. “She came to me asking if she could run the canteen, and the proceeds went towards that.”

In total, the canteen raised $1,463 for Ratanak International, an organization based out of Burnaby, B.C., that works to end human trafficking.

Spark said many of the girls on the championship Grade 9 team will hope to continue onto junior varsity volleyball next season. If the team sticks together and continues to develop their fundamentals, Spark is sure River East’s girls volleyball program will continue to dominate for years to come.

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