Friday afternoon at Peacock, it was finally time for high school teams to take the court for real.
A total of 10 clubs from throughout the province are in Moose Jaw for the senior girls pre-season tournament, marking the first high school games in the city since the pandemic took hold a year and a half ago.
“Basically, U of R cancelled their tournament and when we heard that it was like ‘hey, let’s put something together here right away, let’s get some people in here and these girls playing volleyball because they haven’t played in so long,” said Peacock head coach Lorne Polupski.
“It’s just so nice to be back in the gym,” he added. “The kids are smiling and happy and having fun, and there’s a good crowd watching it all, it’s just nice to be out here and playing again.”
Peacock won their opening game 25-14, 25-10 over the Vanier Spirits, while the Central Cyclones found themselves in a barnburner with Swift Current before falling 26-24, 20-25 and 15-8.
The Toilers and Vanier are joined by Balgonie, Lumsden 1 and Swift Current 2 in Pool A, while Central and Swift Current are taking on Lumsden 2, Weyburn and Estevan.
While the opening contests weren’t Olympic-calibre displays of volleyball, they were a good starting point -- and given the amount of time away from the game, as positive showing as one could imagine.
“I was surprised how good the volleyball was, it was actually pretty good,” Polupski said. “Vanier is young and we have three Grade 12s coming back, then looking across the court, Central is playing well too and having a good game against Swift Current. For not having touched a ball in so long, Moose Jaw teams are doing great.”
Should that continue into league play next week and beyond, it could make for a very interesting season in the high school girls league.
“It’s going to get even better,” Polupski said matter-of-factly. “Vanier is going to be 10 times better by the end of the season and Central has amazing athletes and a lot of good players, so they’ll be there as well… I think this is going to a crapshoot whose going to be the top dog, it’s going to be an exciting season.”
