With the amount of success Thunder Creek Volleyball Club has had in recent years, it only makes sense to give back to those who helped make the club what it is today.
On Wednesday afternoon, the TCVC honoured a trio of former players and high school standouts with the Dan Andrie and Darcey Busse Scholarship Award, signifying player dedication and success while moving on to play post-secondary volleyball.
Receiving the honours for 2023 are Central’s Cadence Johns, who is currently playing for the University of Regina Cougars, along with Cyclones teammate Malea Kletzel, now with the Medicine Hat College Rattlers, and Peacock Toilers grad Summer Okerstrom, currently with the Briercrest College Clippers.
“To go on to play volleyball at the post-secondary level for anybody is a great accomplishment,” said TCVC coach Lorne Polupski . “Seven percent of people go on to play college and university volleyball and to have three players from last year move on to that level is amazing. It’s always great to see players move on in their careers and we’re happy to be able to help them out a bit.”
The awards are named in honour of two well-known and respected coaches and players, with Andrie as one of the club’s founders in the early 80s and Busse as one of the best players to ever take a court in Moose Jaw.
“Those two guys are the role models of how all coaches should be and how all players should be,” Polupski said. “There are lots of coaches who were taught by them and it’s great to be able to honour them.”
All three players expressed gratitude for the scholarships,
“Especially coming from a small town like Moose Jaw and our club being a small club, it’s so great to be able to use all the skills I learned here and bring them into the future and play at university.” said Johns, an outside hitter with the Cougars.
Like most first-year players, Johns has been finding her way in Canada West play, but has enjoyed the experience.
“It’s going really well,” she said. “The team is great, I’m having a great time with practices, games and everything. The schooling has been going really well as well, too, even if it’s been busy. Five classes and playing volleyball is a lot, but it’s great to be able to play volleyball and get away from school every once in awhile… the goal is just to keep getting better throughout the season and keep improving every season.”
Kletzel pointed to TCVC as the place that helped her fall in love with the game at the very beginning.
“It’s great to be recognized by the club, it’s where I first got started with volleyball,” she said. “They’re great coaches and it’s a great club and them noticing me as an athlete going to the next level is really cool.”
Also an outside hitter, Kletzel spent much of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference first semester recovering from an off-season procedure to help with tendon damage in her knee,
“I was just getting back to jumping and playing and I’m hoping the second semester will be a little bit different,” Kletzel said. “I’m doing a lot better even over the last month, so I’ll keep going and keep working hard.”
One of the things Okerstrom was most appreciative of in her time with TCVC was the personal approach they take with their players -- with the scholarships an extension of that.
“Mr. P and Krysta (Caplette), they’re just so generous and such considerate people,” Okerstrom said. “They put so much into their athletes, it’s really different than other clubs in that they really invest in their athletes and pay attention to them, not only when they’re playing but when they’ve moved on to college and university. It’s just a really big blessing, everything they do for us.”
Okerstrom found herself in a unique situation in her first year: not only was she stepping into a Clippers program that annually contends for national championships, but BC also has a new coach for the first time in 16 years as Rhonda Schmuland took over from Nolan Weinmaster.
“I love the new coach, Rhonda has been amazing, she just loves on us girls so much,” Okerstrom said. “And it’s been great to play under players like (CCAA All-Canadian)Faith (Buhler), she’s an amazing, amazing player and it’s really helped me grow to watch her play.”
The key now will be to pick things up in the new year and see if Briercrest can make their way back to the CCAA championship.
“We’ve been doing some adjusting and it’s taken some time to figure out how to play together and stuff,” said Okerstrom, a middle hitter. “All three of us first years have been on and off the court and it’s a big adjustment from high school, so I’m looking forward to the second semester and seeing what we can do. There are a lot of good teams, it’s really even and competitive at the top of the standings, so we’ll see what happens.
You can follow along with Johns’ exploit with the U of R at www.reginacougars.com and how Kletzel and Okerstrom are doing at www.acac.ab.ca.
