Korah reached the finals by defeating Collingwood Collegiate Institute coach by Lady Lakers Alumni Aleda Carr  2-0 while St. Charles defeated locals Chippewa Secondary School 2-0.

The Confederation Chargers defeated the Lasalle Lancers 2-0 (26-24, 25-23) to claim the Consolation Final.

Confederation advanced the Consolation Finals by sweeping North Bay’s Algonquin while Lasalle swept Sault Ste Mary’s Saint Mary’s College.

“Despite the havoc the weather caused on Friday I am really pleased with the tournament.” Said Lady Lakers head coach Marc LaRochelle. “Coaches were very understanding and flexible and both the Championship and Consolation games were very entertaining.”

Nipissing was able to showcase its new facility and all teams had a chance to play on the Lakers feature court.

The Lady Lakers will now have to focus on the task at hand. This weekend the Redeemer Royals and West Division rivals the Humber Hawks this weekend as the Lakers resume regular season play. The traditional Pots and Pans game against Humber should create a great atmosphere as both teams continue their long standing rivalry.

Game times are at 12 pm for the women followed by the men at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

As the girls were passing, spiking, digging, and serving their ways onto the 2011 – 2012 Northern Chill 14U team, Coach Eric Bacon knew what needed to be done to bring this young and impressionable group of young ladies together as a team.

“Months ago, I participated in ‘low ropes’ training”, said Bacon.

“Once I saw the facility, I immediately thought about the potential of using this in a team-building setting”, Bacon further added.

The facility he was talking about is the Killarney-Shebanoning Outdoor Environmental Education Centre.  The goal he was trying to achieve was to give the team a chance to bond in a fun and educational environment.

The girls had a chance to participate in team building activities such as the low ropes course, where they were required to collaborate and work together; two invaluable skills required often on the volleyball court.  Throughout the weekend, the girls were put also put into groups where they were also responsible for preparing meals for their teammates.

While the majority of the weekend was designed to build bonds that club officials hope can be fostered for years to come, the players also enjoyed some court time, where they were able to work on skills as well as team tactics.

“This weekend offered the girls a chance to learn very important lessons about all aspects of the game, from building a winning attitude, to learning what it will be like to compete at the highest level”,  said Bacon.

“I think one of the keys would be that they learned a lot about each other… most don’t see each other outside of volleyball, so it was a great experience which should help our team in the long run”.

The positive outcome that Bacon hoped for was shared by many of the players, including Colleen Bocy, who summised “I had so much fun and learned so many new things.  I’m now really comfortable with my teammates  and I love them all.  I think it will be a great season.”

The team has the opportunity to transfer what they learned in Killarney at the Provincial Cup tournament, held in Cambridge this weekend.

Story submitted by Robert Cundari, Media Manager for Northern Chill Volleyball Club.

Taralynn Ray has a hard enough time balancing schoolwork and her varsity athletics schedule.

There’s just no time for a part-time job.

Sometimes it’s hard to juggle your time,” she said. Athletes have to be very good at time management.”

The Nipissing University Bachelor of Education student is among more than 120 athletes who could benefit from the Adopt-a-Laker program.

The fundraising event was launched last week.

Vito Castiglione, manager of sports and recreation at Nipissing, said the sponsorship program is a way for family, alumni and friends to support student athletes.

This money will directly enhance student athletics,” he said. We face many challenges in Northern Ontario like the increased cost of transportation. We want to build on past success.

Athletes make a lot of sacrifices and are dedicated to their academics. They suffer the financial strain of not being able to fill part-time jobs.”

Castiglione said an investment in the Adopt-a-Laker program is

an investment in leadership, allowing the student-athletes to concentrate on their studies, their sport and giving back to the community.

Donors can make financial donations to one of a variety of teams. The financial support will help offset the cost of training programs, travel and equipment costs for Nipissing’s athletes.

Marc Larochelle, coach for the Lakers’ women’s varsity volleyball team, said the costs of travel and fuel are rising.

“It’s very difficult for athletes,” he said. They have practice six hours per week on the court and travel every weekend. It’s hard for them to get a job that’s flexible.”

The more than 120 student athletes at Nipissing are involved with seven varsity teams, including men’s hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball, cross-country running and nordic skiing.

Each athlete dedicates an average of 15 hours per week to training and competition while maintaining a 70% average. Athletes are also responsible for some costs to compete, such as shoes, skates and personal equipment, as well as food.

Sponsors can donate $100 or more to a varsity team of his or her choice to help with costs.

Adopt-A-Laker supporters will receive a charitable tax receipt and be recognized on the Adopt-A-Laker donor display on campus.

Nipissing president Leslie Lovett-Doust said this will make sure teams have the proper tools to support them on the field, ice or trails.

This new fundraising program will provide the public with an opportunity to sponsor, help and support what’s needed,” she said.

For more information, visit Adopt-A-Laker.ca.

Story taken from the North Bay Nugget

One of them showed up for his first tryout barefoot.  At least two have never played high school volleyball before. None of them play on a club team. Few, if any, actually play in volleyball shoes. And their home is the last high school tile floor left in London, a horrible surface to play on.

But in spite of all that — or maybe because of it — the Westminster Wildcats have forged themselves into a unit that not only is taking aim at the TVRA Central Conference AA crown, but also a berth in the OFSAA tournament for the first time since 1995.

They’re 1-2 in regular season play after a 25-18, 25-15, 25-23 home win over the Banting Broncos on Tuesday, but the two losses came in straight sets to Oakridge (join the club) and a tense five-setter against Saunders.

“It took a while to get used to everyone’s personalities; we all come from different kinds of sports backgrounds and different kinds of countries, but the more we’ve played, the more we’ve melded as a team,” captain and setter Cameron Campbell said. “We just try to have fun with everything we do. Even at practice, although there’s a serious note to it. We do everything together as a group outside school, too, and that’s really a big part of why we’re really a big family.”

That family thread is a common one when talking with the Wildcats players and coaches. Take power hitter Carlos Arteaga Leiva, who came to Canada from Cuba three years ago. When he first came out for the team, he wore jean shorts and a T-shirt.

“And no shoes,” he said with one of his seemingly ever-present smiles and in English that has improved dramatically in his time here — he couldn’t speak a word of it when he first arrived. Playing sports has been a great way to ease into a new culture, he added.

“I’ve met a lot of new people and all of my friends,” he said of volleyball. “My teammates have helped me a lot with the Canadian culture, things like how to take the bus and how everything works here.”

His footwear has improved . . . sort of. He plays in indoor soccer shoes, which on a tile floor can be a tricky proposition.

Fellow power hitter Isaiah Mels is one of the first-time high school players, having made the transition from football. He’s got a tremendous vertical leap that overcomes a relative lack of height for a front-row player and his technique belies his inexperience at this level.

“Partly due to injury, partly due to other changes,” he said of why he switched sports. “I’ve always liked volleyball; I played it in public school and wanted to try it out. It’s the same workload — every day after school, lots of practice and lots of conditioning.”

Westminster is always considered a have-not school because of its socioeconomic demographic, but the Wildcats are using that as motivation as they try to change the school’s athletic image from basketball-only.

“I feel there’s an uprise in our sports here,” Mels said, noting the football team is 2-0. “Especially with our volleyball, we’re tying to get more people out to our games, get more spirit and support, and this team could be the start of that. But we’re definitely the darkhorse a lot of the time and that gives us that edge, that competitive edge to show people we can compete with the big schools like Oakridge and Saunders.”

Head coach Michelle Lange, who’s getting plenty of help from Jason Prouty as she’s on maternity leave, said this group of players has become like sons.

“It’s an unusual team in a lot of ways. I’ve got kids from all over the world — I have Cuba, I have Pakistan, I have Palestine, I have Serbia, I have Canada — and a whole bunch of different cultures, which is kinda neat. I’ve got ESL (English as a second language) kids.

“They’re all multi-sport athletes whose first sport isn’t volleyball, but they are athletes, so they’re easy to coach. I’ve just got great kids who always want to learn, always want to get better. And at the end of the day, they’re competitive, they’re grinders. They will do anything to make sure that ball doesn’t hit the floor.”

The Wildcats should win Central Conference and if they win their first match at WOSSAA (the Central champion plays the Southeast runner-up), they go to OFSAA if, as expected, OFSAA host Madill wins the Huron-Perth title and that conference’s lone WOSSAA spot. Otherwise, the Wildcats would have to win the WOSSAA tournament, but they’re definitely capable.

“It’s my last year and we’ve been close (to OFSAA) the last two,” Campbell said, “so for me, definitely there’s a sense of urgency. That’s still what drives me.”

Story from the London Free Press

GATINEAU – Canada returned to the medal podium at the Pan Am Cup men’s volleyball tournament on Saturday with a decisive 25-14, 25-20, 25-21 victory over a young but very talented squad from Puerto Rico.

Brazil, buoyed by a group of loud supporters with with drums and horns, won the tournament for the first time with an exciting 25-23, 21-25, 25-17, 28-26 victory over the U.S., the three time defending champions.

Gavin Schmitt of Saskatoon led the Canadian attack with 14 points while team captain Fred Winters of Victoria added 12 and Gord Perrin of Creston, B.C., nine as more than 1,000 volleyball fans turned out at the sweltering Centre Robert-Guertin.

The Canadians finished with a 4-1 record, with two of those wins against Puerto Rico. They went 2-0 in the round robin, defeated Mexico in the quarterfinal and lost to powerhouse Brazil in the semis on Friday night.

‘’We are happy with the win tonight but we still have a lot of things to work on,’’ said Canada’s head coach Glenn Hoag. ‘’This tournament for us will be a good reference point on what we need to work on and it was also a great chance to evaluate the players.’’

Winters said the Canadian squad, fourth at last year’s Pan Am Cup, was hoping to get a better result at the week-long tournament.

‘’It’s nice to finish with a win, especially that we are now headed into two weeks of training,’’ he said. ‘’It was probably our best executed match of the tournament. But it’s early in the season and I done this enough times to know it’s a long process to get the chemistry back.

‘’We hadn’t played together for eight months before this tournament.’’

Schmitt won two tournament awards: he was the top scorer and the top spiker. Paulo Silva of Brazil was the tournament MVP.

The tournament was the first building block in a season that will include an Olympic qualifying event this winter. This week the Canadians were without some of their top international stars including Alexandre Gaumont-Casias of Marieville, Que., and Adam Simac of Ottawa who are recovering from injuries.

That gave an opportunity for players like Perrin, 21, and 23-year-old Justin Duff of Winnipeg an opportunity to impress the coaching staff this week.

Ulises Maldonado and Ezequiel Cruz were top pointsmen for the Puerto Rico with eight each. Some of the Puerto Rican players are heading to the junior Pan Am Cup which starts Tuesday in Panama

‘’We thought we had a pretty good shot of winning but they stepped it up a notch and beat us,’’ said Puerto Rico’s captain Edgardo Goas. ‘’It was still a successful tournament for us. We’ve only been together for two weeks so nobody expected us to battle for a medal.’’

The rest of the standings are Mexico fifth, Venezuela sixth, Argentina seventh, Dominican Republic eighth, Bahamas ninth and Panama 10th.

Canada was fourth last year, silver medallists in 2009 and 2008 and bronze medallists in the inaugural Pan Am Cup in 2006.

Story from volleyball.ca

Athletes from the men’s national volleyball team will be on-site to discuss and sign autographs.

The event details are as follows:

Location: Jacques-Cartier Park (Sun Life Snowflake Kingdom – Place Gatineau)

Dates :
Friday, February 18th – 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Saturday, February 19th – 10:00 am to 4:30pm
Sunday, February 20th – 10:00 am to 4:30pm
 
No registration is required. Gather family and friends and come in large numbers! For more information on snow volleyball, please contact Ariane Thibault at athibault@volleyball.ca or call 613-748-5681 x 222

For more information on the Winterlude, please visit www.winterlude.gc.ca

To view the full Winterlude activity list, go to www.gatineau.ca/winterlude

Story from the Volleyball Canada Website | Volleyball.ca

The host school St. Michaels College School has jumped out of the gate winning the Guelph University and Dalhousie University tournaments. The tournament also showcases OFSAA AAAA Gold Medalist Birchmount and 2009 Bronze Medalist Rick Hansen. Also participating in this year’s event is Upper Canada College, Woburn, Bill Crothers, Anderson, and the always tough Mississauga SS who recently won the University of Toronto tournament.

Competition starts Friday at 10am and continues until the last round at 5:30pm on Friday. The first quarterfinal will start at 9am on Saturday morning. The action continues all day until the finals at 4:45pm. Rogers TV will be in attendance to tape the semi finals and finals in HD. St. Mikes is located at the corner of St. Clair and Bathurst in Toronto. Parking is available in the area, the school is also a short walk from St. Clair West Subway Station. Come out and enjoy some great volleyball.

Day two of the tournament played out like this -

We were matched up against MEX 5 in the morning and beat them in two straight sets. Following that match we played the winner of MEX 4 and CAN 2 – CAN 2 handled them fairly easily which meant after a few more games we would face off.

This game was the most enjoyable for me out of all the games but unfortunately for Jessi he injured his back the same way he did in Slave Lake, and at Nationals. Luckily, he didn’t hurt it until late in the second set. We had won the first 21-14, and were up at the technical time-out 11-10. Jessi, injured back and all was serving and managed to go ona five point run, from there we earned a couple more and went back and forth siding out to end the game.

Between games Jessi was in the medical tent being worked on by one of the therapists here and we were both unsure if he would be able to play our next match against Cuba to make it to the semi’s. After a good 25 minutes of work he came out and was moving around well enough to play but unfortunately, we fell to Cuba once again in two straight sets.

The first set was side out for side out until the technical time-out and from there Cuba started to pull away. The second set wasn’t any better and we eventually lost in two straight sets again. On top of the officiating being highly questionable, Jessi’s back being on that same level, and Cuba’s power type of game – it was too much and we ended our tournament in fifth place.

Fortunately, it’s still sunny today and at least I will be able to watch the semi’s and finals while bathing in the sun but this is me trying very hard to put a positive spin on things. Up next is Manzanillo and from there, home.

We have a short layover in Puerto Vallarta for a couple days where we’ll meet Binstock and Hinchy before Manzanillo, then a bus ride from PV to Manz for the tournament.

Until next week – thanks for staying up to date and for your support!

-Mav

John-Paul has served as Volleyball Canada’s Executive Director for the past three-and-a-half years, following two years as Marketing Director. He took on the position of Executive Director during one of Volleyball Canada’s toughest times, but using an innovative marketing approach to increase revenue from partnerships and putting expense controls in to place eliminated much of VC’s $1.7-million debt.

John-Paul’s energy, enthusiasm and passion for Canadian sport partnered with sound business sense have helped to elevate the organization as a provider of world-class events and competition. John-Paul will be ending his term September 24th, Volleyball Canada members and staff will sincerely miss his leadership and dedication, and wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors.

Story from Volleyball Canada | Volleyball.ca

LIMA, Peru – Subpar play at the end of sets continued to haunt Canada’s national women’s volleyball team on Saturday night as they lost to Peru 17-25, 25-14, 20-25, 25-20, 15-13 on Saturday night to complete a five-match series between the two world championship bound squads.

With the victory, Peru won all five matches in the series.  Both Peru and Canada, ranked 17th and 24th in the world respectively, are currently tuning up for the FIVB women’s world volleyball championships set for October 29 to November 14 in Japan.

In the deciding fifth set, Canada squandered a 9-6 lead to the delight of the 5,000 plus spectators in attendance.

“It was pretty disappointing for us not to finish,” said Tiffany Dodds of Lucky Lake, Sask., who scored 11 points. “Again tonight we needed to be better at closing sets especially after the 20-point mark.”

Still it was a drastic improvement on the three-set loss on Thursday.

“Our blocking was really good tonight and is continually improving,” said Dodds. “If we can bring up other aspects of our game and make fewer mistakes we will be more successful.”

Sarah Pavan of Kitchener, Ont., was the top Canadian scorer with 19 points.

“The match was a history of the whole week in Peru,” said Canada’s head coach Arnd Ludwig. “We did some really good things and at the end we made unforced errors.  This week was good, we played against a very good team and we are very close to them.”

Canada is the midst of an 18-day tour and closes out its trip with three matches against Costa Rica on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Costa Rica is also headed to the worlds.

Story from Volleyball Canada Website