Auroras battle tough at Double Blue

St. Mary’s Auroras girls volleyball team proved themselves competitive at its home Double Blue tournament over the weekend.

Having to overcome an injury of a rolled ankle from one of its setters early on in the tournament, the Auroras still managed to win numerous games.

“We did pretty well considering we lost one of our players in the first game.  Considering that, finishing sixth in the tournament was pretty good,” said Dave Wilson, head coach of the St. Mary’s Auroras varsity girls volleyball team.

Auroras played three matches in round-robin play, finishing second in its pool with a 3-3 record and also played three matches in playoffs. The team lost out to Double Blue finalist Raymond Comets in a playoff round before winning in three sets against Clearwater and finally losing in two sets to Three Hills to end its tournament run.

“Some of the girls stepped up very well. I liked how the team kept playing and didn’t give up,” said Wilson.

“We had a good match against Raymond. It was pretty good competition overall.”

The Auroras showed spurts of solid play, but it’s overall consistency the team craves has it hits a buy couple of week son the road in league play coming up.

“Our play was up and down. I think our skill development has been good, but I don’t think we’ve been able to put it together in the last couple of weeks and it inched its way a bit into the tournament,” said John Bronsema, assistant coach with the Auroras.  “We’re just not coming up with the tighter sets. Instead of being up by three points, we’re down by three points. We’re going to try and figure that out in the next week here.”

St. Mary’s Auroras are on the road on Thursday to battle the Picture Butte Queens before traveling to raymond on Monday to play the Comets. The team then also travels next Wednesday to play the Winston Churchill Griffins.

The team returns to tournament play on the Nov. 1-2 weekend for the Monster Mash in Vulcan.

“Being heavy on Grade 10s we are competitive with usually having three Grade 10s on the court and the girls coming off the bench are playing their roles well,” said Wilson.