The Foothills Falcons have done it again.
The Falcons won their third-consecutive Foothills Athletic Council Senior boys volleyball banner when they downed the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir Spartans 3-0 (25-14, 25-20, 25-17) Nov. 14 at Foothills Composite High School.
Falcons coach Corey Cowper said he hopes winning the league title will provide some added fire and confidence for his players as they prepare for the 4A provincials this weekend in Lethbridge, for schools with 800 students or more.
“We are going into provincials expecting to play a lot of hard teams,” Cowper said. “It would have been devastating if we would have lost tonight.”
Cowper said being the two-time defending council champion, as well as the lone school with more than 800 students in the league, could make his squad complacent.
“I told the guys not to take STS lightly, they are a good team,” Cowper said. “I thought we were a bit nonchalant the first game. We definitely didn’t play like we practiced.”
The Falcons picked it up in the second game, taking advantage of loose balls and hammering it home on the Spartans’ side of the court.
“We were very light on our number of errors tonight,” Cowper said. “That’s kind of what volleyball is about. You often win points because of the other team’s mistakes.”
Falcons power Shaeden Howse made no mistake when he drilled home the winning point in Game 4 to take the league title.
“There’s a little bit of pressure on us to win because we are the bigger school, so we came in tonight and wanted to work hard,” Howse said. “It felt really good to get the winning hit, but we have to put our heads down now and focus on provincials.”
He said the Falcons have worked on their serving and he felt that was a key factor in the win over STS.
Spartans coach Dale Roth sounded like the title of ex-Beatle George Harrison’s classic album “All Things Must Pass” in summing up the FAC final.
He said nothing good resulted for the Spartans because of their poor passing.
“When we were able to put the ball in our setter’s hands we were equal,” Roth said. “Our passing tonight was awful. Other things worked well but we just couldn’t get our passing together.”
Roth also had to make some adjustments due to some injuries and trying to stop the Falcons’ defence.
“They had some good hits but so did we,” Roth said. “I thought we handled their offence pretty well. It was our service routine where we had trouble.”
In the FAC Senior girls final the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir Spartans beat the Strathmore Spartans 3-1. See the Nov. 21 edition of the Okotoks Western Wheel for further details.
