Junior varsity Auroras shining

There was a silver lining to the St. Mary’s Auroras junior varsity girls volleyball team’s trek to Vulcan.

There, the team earned silver medals as second-place finishers in a tournament.

“The girls are developing a solid team approach and as long as we don’t fall asleep on that we’ll do fine. You need every player on board,” said John Bronsema, head coach of the St. Mary’s Auroras junior varsity girls volleyball team.

“That’s something we will be working towards all season, everybody on board consistently. The only reason we lost out in the final was we simply ran out of gas. We had only seven players and it ended up being a long two days and we ran out of steam. We were very comparable teams and it was very fun to play them.”

The tournament was very much there for the taking, which eventually went to champion Rundle College from Calgary. The junior varsity Auroras have been flawless so far in Southern Alberta High School Girls Volleyball League play with a 4-0 record and also showed their strength at the tournament playing seven matches, finishing first in its original pool. Prior to the final, St. Mary’s had split sets with Rundle College in the previous two matches they played against each other.

“Although we haven’t dominated our matches, we’ve been able to claw away at them. It’s probably because all players are able to contribute and that helps. We are finding ways for each girl to contribute which you have to having that few of numbers,” said Bronsema. “They are willing to try different things out of their comfort zone and I appreciate that. The thing that has us hanging in there is we haven’t quit any matches. When we are on, serving is a strength which helps any team, but we’re still struggling with consistent court coverage which we are working on.”

St. Mary’s Auroras girls volleyball program hosts Chinook today which will prove a huge test. Junior varsity starts at 6 p.m. with varsity to follow.

“That is a girls volleyball powerhouse, so we are hoping to make Chinook work as hard as possible because that will be a tough one,” said Bronsema.

St. Mary’s Auroras will not be in tournament play again until its Double Blue tournament on the Oct. 18-19 weekend.