Two local athletes, along with their Zone 7 Northeastern Alberta girls U15 volleyball teammates, battled their way to a silver medal at the 2014 Alberta Winter Games in Banff/Canmore Feb. 6 to 9, defying the odds to record the team's best ever finish at the tournament.
Harlee Cameron and Nicole Bourget, of Bonnyville, fought alongside ten other teammates at the tournament to earn themselves a second-placed finish, something the team's coach Rod Hebert believes is an “unbelievable achievement.”
“The kids were absolutely amazing this past weekend, they played to their ability and then some,” Hebert said. “I really couldn't have asked for anything more from any of them – the chemistry, effort and determination was unbelievable and the important thing is they played together completely as a team. It didn't matter which girls I put out on the floor, they competed with the best this province had to offer and very nearly came out on top.”
The girls kicked off the competition with big wins over the heavily favoured Calgary and Big Country (rural Calgary) on Friday to secure first place in their bracket, before dropping their final round robin game to the team representing rural Edmonton. It was those two victories to start the tournament that Hebert said inspired his team to a second-placed finish.
“I think those first couple of wins really set the tone for us for the rest of the tournament,” Hebert said. “It's huge to get off on a good foot like that. I think the results really gave the girls some added confidence and made them realize they were good enough to compete with anyone.”
That victory set up a quarter-final tie with the Zone 6 Edmonton team on Saturday, which saw the girls come out on top with a 2-1 decision before putting the Zone 4 Parkland (Red Deer area) to the sword in the semi-final.
That led to a place in the gold medal game on Sunday, where the girls would come face to face with the squad representing the Grande Prairie region. The girls struggled early on, dropping the first set 25-15 before rallying to record a comfortable 25-17 victory in the second. That set up a mouth-watering third set, which saw the girls just come up short, dropping to a 15-12 defeat.
Hebert admitted the team representing Grande Prairie deserved their victory in the gold medal game, but that his girls could be proud of their accomplishments, especially when considering the team's record of finishing last at the last two Alberta Winter Games.
“I think to be able to excel, compete and win against some of the best volleyball players in the province is a huge credit to these girls,” Hebert said. “We were playing against the best of the best from the big city teams and in truth, we dominated them. It's not like we got lucky in this tournament, we beat pretty well every team we came up against, other than Grande Prairie – the girls can be very, very proud of their accomplishments.”
Going into the games, Hebert was hopeful his team would be able to secure a top four finish and he was delighted that they were able to surpass that and secure a silver medal.
“I have to admit, I was hoping for a top four coming into the tournament and I honestly didn't expect us to do as well as we did, but that being said these girls bonded together so well. No other team had the chemistry we had and you could just tell these girls were going to produce,” Hebert said. “They came together and complimented each other perfectly – there was no trouble, no drama, just all positive. I've never coached a team like this before in my (20 years) involved in the sport.”
Hebert added that he was keen to point out how big of a deal this result was for a team coming from a sparse, regional area.
“This was a really big deal,” Hebert said. “For these girls to compete at this level against all the big cities is amazing.”
He added, “You don't see that very often – if you look at hockey, you play at your level according to population, but this had nothing at all to do with population. We stood before all the big guns at this tournament and produced the goods. I picked this team from a population of roughly 20,000 people and we were competing against teams that picked from a population of a million people. It's just truly amazing what this group of girls was able to accomplish.”
