The sixth annual Turkeyburner volleyball tournament, hosted by the St. Augustine Catholic School Queens turned out to be a resounding success for the home team.
The senior Queens hosted the tournament last weekend from Friday, Oct. 17 to Oct. 18. Their first game played against Daysland on Friday caused coach Darren Josephison some worry.
During the round robin teams played two sets per match, the Queens won their first but lost their second set against the Daysland Darls.
“We made our serves, we made our hits. Daysland missed eight, nine serves in the first game and missed a bunch of hits. In the second game Daysland was almost perfect. They didn’t miss a serve and they didn’t miss any hits and we missed a number of hits and we missed a number of serves,” explained Josephison of the first match .
He said the deficit in the second set became too great for the girls to regain their confidence. Josephison was concerned the loss would affect their overall standings in the pool.
Despite the loss, the Queens rallied and played strong against their competitors. They played Rimbey in the semi-finals. Teams played best of three sets in the playoffs but the Queens did not let Rimbey make it to a third set with two wins of 25-23 and 25-21.
Their competitor in the finals was Delburne, a team that started the first set strong. The Queens lost the first set 23-25. Rather than lose confidence, the host team returned the favour defeating Delburne by the same point margin as the first set with a score of 25-23.
Coming into the third set, the Queens, with a home court advantage, did not disappoint; they defeated Delburne 15-13 to a vocal crowd of Queens’ supporters.
The Turkeyburner is held right after Thanksgiving and Josephison says there are usually 10 to 12 teams that compete and interest has always been strong.
So far in the regular season the Queens are sitting in first place with a record of 7-1. Josephison says there are four teams, including the Queens that have a strong chance of making it to zones.
“This Daysland team will be one of the three teams coming out of the east when we get to playoffs,” said Josephison.
The Queens next regular season match is Monday, Oct. 27 starting at 5:30 p.m.