BANFF – On the brink of defeat, a Canmore volleyball team turned an eight point deficit into bronze.
The Our Lady of the Snows Avalanche senior girls came back to stun the Trochu Valley Jays (16-25, 25-22, 17-15) after a game-changing momentum swing late at the Banff Bears senior girls tournament from Oct. 21-22.
Down 11-3 in a set that goes up to 15 points, Avalanche captain Meadow Falconer said the team willed its way to a bronze medal on Saturday.
“I think just realizing how badly we wanted to win something,” said Falconer. “We’ve been to quite a few tournaments these past few weeks and we haven’t been able to push hard enough for that final win and I think we kind of came in the centre and said, ‘guys, we want this’ and then we just showed that on the court.”
After losing the first set to the Jays, 25-16, the Avalanche started the second set with a massive 12-point lead, led by sizzling serving from Falconer and Natalie Logan.
“My coach would have killed me if I missed them, so I kind of just did what I had to do,” Logan said with a laugh.
However, the hot hand for OLS didn’t last as the Jays clawed back to tie the set at 22.
Just as an epic choke job was incoming, the Avalanche bent but didn’t break and took the set, 25-22. It set up the final winner-takes-all match.
Falconer said mental strength has been emphasized recently and the struggling team needed it during the middle set.
“As a team, we’ve been focusing on making your fifth serve, your 10th serve and working one point at a time,” she said. “I think that helped us push toward the final set.”
The Jays jumped on OLS in the third with a commanding 11-3 lead, but the Avalanche wouldn’t be buried so easily and inched out of the deep hole and back into the game.
Momentum switched in favour of the rolling Avalanche until the set was tied. Because winning by two points is a must, the two determined teams fought back and forth until the Jays cracked and OLS pulled ahead 17-15 to win bronze.
“We were definitely the underdog who just kept fighting and clawing our way through games,” said Avalanche coach Janell Toews.
“They played hard and we’ve been working on a lot of things all season and they came together, stayed positive and they didn’t give up and it’s awesome.”
The Avalanche now prepare to host the senior girls volleyball 2A Zones on Nov. 18-19.
The 2A provincial tournament is Nov. 24-26 in Willow Creek.
