Auroras play hard at provincials in Bonnyville

Submitted by Carolyn Siemens

The St. Mary Auroras travelled to Bonnyville to compete in the ASAA 1A Provincials hosted by Ecole des Beaux-Lacs school this past weekend. The tournament started on Thursday with opening ceremonies and then moved into competition. The Auroras went into the tournament ranked in seventh place. The tournament is organized by the first round of play being power pools so we were in a pool with the teams ranked fifth to eighth. The other two pools are the top four teams and the bottom four teams. Our first game was against Two Hills, we came out flat and we fell behind 10-18 in the first set, the girls worked hard to get themselves back into the game and were able to pull out a win 28-26 and then won the second game to take the win. Kennedy Planger led the way with seven kills, followed by Anisa Cranston with six and McKenzie Siemens added five aces.

Our second match was against Stirling who we have battled back and forth with all season. The girls played a great match against them and won in two sets. We were able to pass the ball really well and keep them out of system. Logan Meier was on fire with nine kills and Planger added six. The first day of Provincials wrapped up with a banquet and dance for the girls.

Heading into day two we had one more pool play game left and we played Bawlf. We struggled against Bawlf and lost the match in two sets. Jayna Grimson had four blocks against Bawlf’s middle, which was really exciting and Meier had five aces. The loss put us in second place in the pool which meant we had to play a crossover game to get into the quarter final match.

In the cross over match we played Prairie Christian Academy from Three Hills. Our first set we won 25-12 and the second set was closer 25-21. Planger again led with nine kills and Cranston added six aces in the win. This win put us in a quarter final against St. Jerome’s from Vermillion. This was another exciting match which went to three sets. We were able to come back from being down 5-13 to win the first set with Tessa Langlands serving us back into the match and having some big blocks against their middle. We took a loss in the second set, which sent us to our first third set match. Our girls were able to pass the ball well against them but we were not able to stop their strong middle player and lost in the third set. Planger led with 11 kills, Siemens adding five, and we saw great serving throughout the match from Cranston.

The quarter final loss put us into the ‘b’ bracket which ended up being the same four teams we had played in pool play. All teams in the tournament stayed in their original ranking category, which showed the ranking system worked well, there were no upsets. This meant we played Stirling again in our first match on Saturday. This time Stirling won the competition although our girls played well. Planger had great passing throughout the match and eight kills, Meier added five.

Our last game was against Two Hills and our girls showed up to play. They came out strong and were able to win the match 25-9 and 25-16. Planger had eight kills and Siemens added five aces. It was great to end the weekend with a win and that allowed us to keep our seventh place ranking ending the tournament. Siemens received an ASAA Set the Bar nomination for sportsmanship in the tournament. It was really rewarding to have the girls be able to finish their season with a bronze medal in Zones and then to compete at Provincials. They definitely peaked when they needed to and played their best volleyball to finish the season.