Bringing home the turkey, not bacon, was given some new meaning this past weekend for St. Augustine School.
The Queens’ senior girls volleyball squad managed to walk away with the championship at their home Turkey Burner tournament, while the Kings senior boys came out with bronze and the junior varsity Queens won the B side title.
“The victory felt very good as this young team continues to surprise and impress with me with their talent and poise under pressure,” said a rather excited Queens head coach Darren Josephison.
“I was also extremely happy with the JV team’s performance, who showed they could play with and beat any team at the tournament because of their basic skills and enthusiasm.”
The senior Queens failed to lose a set in their round robin pool — beating up on teams such as Consort, New Norway, Holy Trinity from Drayton Valley, Lacombe JV’s and Rocky Mountain House’s St. Dominics. No club got closer than scoring 19 points on the Queens in any match.
That pitted the Queens against Christ the King out of Leduc in the semi-finals, which they cruised past for a date against the winners of last year’s Turkey Burner, Notre Dame out of Bonnyville who also went undefeated up to that point.
The JV Queens won four sets over their five round robin matches before defeating both St. Dominics and New Norway in the B side playoffs.
Boys bronze
Meanwhile, the boys side of the tournament featured eight teams with the Kings dropping one set to the Lacombe JV squad during their round robin pool play, while getting past Consort and John Maland from Devon.
Unfortunately, the Kings came up against one of the top 1A schools in the province from Forestburg in the semi-final and lost, with Forestburg going on to win the tournament over Consort. However, the club defeated Vegreville’s St. Mary’s Saints to walk away with the bronze.
“The boys played extremely well and our key to success is to take smart risks, be aggressive and continually attack especially in a close game,” said Kings head coach Justin Florean. “We do that then we have a good chance.”
Provincial road
The Queens are hoping to keep things rolling during a pair of huge matches against some tough league opponents — tonight (Oct. 17) at home to Rimbey followed Oct. 24 at Pigeon Lake.
Josephison added the outcomes of those matches are likely to decide who takes the league title and top seeding into the zone provincial playoff next month.
As for the Kings, their goal is to get the guaranteed provincial berth by making it to the zone championship final match.
jordie.dwyer@ponokanews.com
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