Kelvin volleyball wins two division banners

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This article was published 30/11/2022 (1132 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kelvin High School will be raising two new banners, after the varsity boys and junior varsity girls volleyball teams took home WSD AAAA division championships.

“I’m feeling great,” said Levi Unger, a Grade 11 student and varsity boys player.

Unger, who plays left side, said the win was the culmination of a season’s worth of work.

“I felt like we improved a lot over the season. And then we had a really good game in the finals,” the 15-year-old said. “We were all around solid. We had good passing. We worked well as a team. Obviously, the sets were great. Our blocking improved a lot, I think too. It came together.”

Unger gave a little laugh when saying “obviously, the sets were great,” as 17-year setter Jonas Pathammavong sat next to him.

Pathammavong didn’t focus on his own position when describing the team’s recipe for success, however.

“I think we’re just very well rounded. We have some good servers, some good hitters. Our blocking is not too bad. So, it’s just a combination of being pretty decent at everything,” he said.

That sort of even-keel response is exactly the sort of thing Pathammavong says he brings to the team.

“I think I don’t get in my own head, and I think I can stay calm for the team,” he said.

With the win, Pathammavong and Kelvin High School are back-to-back division champions.

Coach for both years’ teams was Ronann Mariano, a Kelvin High School teacher.

“We had four returning starters from last year, and six or seven players total,” Mariano said. “We had a lot of experience coming in, and I was glad to get the job done.”

Mariano also had a hard time pinpointing a single thing that led to the team’s success, rather crediting the all-around play of his team. He added, however, the thing that binds everything together is the team’s ability to communicate well on the court.

The team will now head to the provincial tournament to try to turn some heads and turn the tables on teams the boys from Kelvin think might be overlooking them.

“You know what,” Mariano said, “I think we’re highly underrated. We didn’t play very many ranked teams, so I don’t think people know who we are. And I think we have a really good chance to make a good push.”

“We’re the underdogs,” Unger said, the day before hitting the court against the Lord Selkirk Royals on Nov. 24. “We’ll play loose knowing that everyone’s kind of expecting us to lose the first game.”

Unfortunately for the team, the Clippers ended up dropping their first round matchup to Lord Selkirk in four sets.

The Free Press Community Review were unable to contact the junior varsity girls team before press time. That team also headed to provincials on the back of their division championship, facing off in a three-game round robin the same night as their varsity boys counterparts kicked off their tourney. They ended up with a 1-2 record in the round robin.