Royals dominant in sweep of Vikings

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This article was published 29/11/2023 (706 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Lord Selkirk Royals are loaded with star power and those prime-time players were an overwhelming force Wednesday night.

Megan Carpenter led Selkirk with 10 kills while fellow left side Carley Catellier and setter/right side Zoey Purvis added eight and five kills, respectively, to power the top-seeded Royals to a 25-17, 25-15, 25-19 sweep of the No. 4 Vincent Massey (Brandon) Vikings in varsity girls semifinal action at the Boston Pizza AAAA Provincial Volleyball Championships at Investors Group Athletic Centre Wednesday night.

Selkirk will face the Steinbach Sabres in Monday’s 6 p.m. provincial final.

The third-seeded Sabres, with 13 kills from Sienna Driedger, advanced with a 19-25, 25-23, 25-15, 20-25, 15-10 triumph over the No. 2 Collège Jeanne-Sauvé Olympiens.

“The match went about as well as we could have hoped,” said Royals head coach Chad Whiteside. “We have depth at every position but our girls have worked really hard to get there. They’ve been passionate about the sport for a long time. A lot of them started in elementary school and went through the junior high programs in our school division and they just developed a love for the game and it just translated into some spectacular play and in the Grade 11 and 12 seasons.”

The Royals also got five kills from Danika Jakabek and four more from Madilyn Freiter.

The 6-1 Purvis’s versatility and command of the floor was very apparent against the Vikings.

“We use Zoey as a right side attacker when she’s in the front row and as a setter in the back row and the decision to do that is really just because she has a lot of experience and she’s an aggressive and versatile attacker and we also like it when the ball is in her hands as a setter,” explained Whiteside. “At the same time, we also recognize the strength of her attack and want to utilize that strength.”

Purvis, still only in Grade 11, was grateful for the array of offensive weapons at her disposal.

“I’m able to trust my players when I’m running the offence and I’m able to trust Paige (setter Bravo Bernier) to run the offence,” said Purvis. “I feel like she does it really efficiently and I feel like I also do it very efficiently. We had a couple of misfires but that’s normal.”

Truth be told, the Royals would have been even more formidable with Brooklyn Grobb-Prins in their lineup but the Grade 11 left side is spending the first half of the school year with Volleyball Canada’s National Excellence Program in Richmond, B.C.

“I still had high hopes,” said Purvis. “Brooklyn would have been a great asset but with or without her, we still would have been a great team.”

Massey got a 10-kill performance from Jersey Hansen-Young but defensive woes had the Brandonites scrambling.

“They really beat up on our block in the first two sets,” said Vikings head coach Kelly DeRoo. “We had a plan for defending them but our blockers were a little slow to get to closing and unfortunately they scored a lot. A lot of those balls came off our block and our defence had a hard time. So we switched our defence in the third set and that seemed to be helping, but it was a little too late.”

Massey won the previous meeting between the teams this season.

“We had a good game against them and so we had some confidence coming in,” said DeRoo. “I felt like we had prepared well and practised well all week and unfortunately, we came up short tonight.”

Said Whiteside: “We have tremendous respect for Massey-Brandon and we knew that they were going to put up a fight and even after we got an early lead, we knew they weren’t gonna go away.”

In today’s varsity boys action, Winnipeg’s top-seeded Vincent Massey Trojans will meet the No. 4 River East Kodiaks in a 6 p.m. semifinal Thursday while the second-seeded Dakota Lancers take on No. 3 Glenlawn Lions at 8 p.m. The semifinal winners meet in Monday’s final at 8 p.m.

All games are at IGAC.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca