Third place is becoming an all-too predictable situation for the Queens.
St. Augustine’s Queens senior girls volleyball squad hosted their annual Turkeyburner tournament last weekend and for the fifth time this season, wound up in third place — this time losing to Rimbey in the semifinals 25-22, 25-22 before Rimbey fell to St. Dominic’s from Rocky Mountain House in the final.
“We played really well most of the weekend, but stumbled a bit in the semifinal and couldn’t take advantage of Rimbey, who were without a few of their star players,” said Queens head coach Darren Josephison.
“We simply just didn’t play up to what our potential is.”
The tournament was originally supposed to have 12 teams, but the dump of snow on Oct. 14 caused a pair of teams to drop out and the schedule to be reworked, which had already included the Queens junior varsity squad and a team of Queen’s alumni to fill out the event.
The senior team placed tops in their five-team pool by defeating the alumni 25-12, 25-21 and easily getting by a team from Calgary (25-7, 25-9) and one from Camrose (25-7, 25-12) before splitting their two sets with Rimbey by scores of 21-25, 25-23.
The Queens alumni wound up second in the pool after getting past Calgary 25-12, 25-15 and Camrose 25-17, 25-18 then edging out Rimbey 25-18, 25-21.
Meanwhile, the junior varsity Queens wound up third in their pool by beating Tofield 25-20, 25-17 and splitting the match with Ermineskin 23-25, 28-26 then losing to Leduc and St. Dominc’s.
Those results ended up pitting the alumni against the junior varsity girls in one quarter-final, while Rimbey had to take on Leduc in the other.
Overall, Josephison was pleased with the way everything turned out, as a few teams showed up Friday night to play, leaving less of a hassle to schedule for Saturday.
League play
Meanwhile, the Queens sit second in the league standings with a four win, one loss record, behind undefeated Rimbey. The Queens haven’t had it easy with all four victories going the full five sets, including their match at home against David Thompson from Condor on Oct. 12 by scores of 25-15, 27-29, 25-21, 22-15, 15-10.
As for the Kings senior boys volleyball club, the season hasn’t been very long as they have played just three matches and won two, including a straight set win 25-14, 25-21, 27-25 over David Thompson at home last week.
League action continues tonight with both the Kings and Queens heading to Pigeon Lake.