The Vanier Vikings reached the championship final of the Moose Jaw Invitational tournament, and the other three local entries -- the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons, Central Cyclones and Peacock Toilers -- all reached the top playoff pool after the first round of action.
In the end, Vanier would meet Cornerstone in the tournament semifinal and emerge victorious in another epic battle before falling 2-0 (25-20, 25-21) to North Battleford John Paul II in the gold medal game.
“It was pretty cool to see the re-pool and having all four Moose Jaw teams in the tournament being in Tier I, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before in the time I’ve been running it,” said Vikings coach and event organizer Levi Broda “So that shows just how strong our league really is this year.”
The Vikings naturally would have liked to come out of the Invitational with a tournament win, but ran into a John Paul II side that brought back positive memories for Broda.
“They really remind me of our 2019 team where they pass extremely well and have a great defence that’s really scrappy,” Broda said of his powerhouse 4A provincial champion squad. “Then they can set it anywhere at any time, creating one-on-one battles everywhere instead of just cheating to their best player… We took it on the chin from them on Friday and to get a rematch against them and be in the match for both sets was really nice to see.”
Vanier’s two-set loss in the first round-robin pool still gave them second place, and they blazed through Tier I re-seed pool undefeated to set up their semifinal battle with the Falcons.
“I was really, really pleased with the way the boys competed on the weekend,” Broda said. “It’s the time of year where you really want to be ramping up your execution and your play and it’s really nice for the boys to see the results.”
Central and Cornerstone each won their opening pool, while Peacock finished second.
After the re-seed, Central joined Peacock, Cornerstone and John Paul II in their Tier I pool, with each of the local teams going 2-4 in sets won and taking a set off each other. Cornerstone then advanced via tiebreaker.
