And sure enough, it would happen again when the two teams met for the title in front of well over 200 fans at Peacock on Tuesday night.
But like the first meeting, the Toilers would respond. And in the end, Peacock would go on to a 3-1 (25-19, 18-25, 25-11, 25-19) victory to claim their second-straight league championship.
“We came into this kind of not really knowing what to expect since we hadn’t played Central in a really long time, so I think it could have gone either way,” said Toilers senior and Team Sask member Summer Okerstrom. “But we came out and played well and I’m really proud of my team… We had some girls who hadn’t played at this level all season and they came out and just crushed it and I’m so happy for that.”
As well as things turned out for Peacock, that second set could have been a gamechanger, as Central’s defence kept them in point after point and swung momentum heavily in their favour.
But a few strategic changes got the Toilers back on track, and they roared out to a 15-3 lead in the third set before closing out the 14-point win.
“One thing about the year is we’ve been in some pretty strong tournaments and that’s helped us, where we’ve been down before and come back and won games against some of the toughest 5A teams,” said Toilers coach Lorne Polupski.
“So that’s how we’re getting better and able to come back in close games. We just got a little nervous tonight with the crowd, but other than that we came back, the kids did what they needed to do. We had a game plan, they stuck to it and were able to score points at right times… the girls did great.”
Responding as well as they did completely changed the tone of the match in Okerstrom’s eyes.
“That was so important, very important, because whoever wins that then has a high going into the next set,” she said. “We pulled it off and we’re really happy.”
It was a solid year all around for Peacock girls volleyball, as with their junior girls teams also winning the city title, things are looking good for the green and orange for the foreseeable future.
“This program here, the volleyball at Peacock rocks,” Polupski said. “You look at this year, the juniors won, we won, you look at the banners here, we’ve won 15 out of 20 years. So we’ll just keep on going.”
Of course, this being 4A girls volleyball, the two teams aren’t done with one another yet. Regionals are in Moose Jaw this weekend, and sure enough, Peacock and Central face off in the opening game at 12 p.m. Friday at Peacock.
“And for all we know we could end up playing them at provincials, too,” Polupski said. “It’ll be another tough game and we’ll be looking to clean some things up, but it’s good to have momentum going into the weekend, too.”
