One of the best games of the season is getting a deserved rematch for the championship.
The Strathcona-Tweedsmuir Spartans and Foothills Falcons advanced to the Foothills Athletic Council senior boys volleyball championship match on Nov. 6 when they get another shot at one another after a memorable regular season meeting that saw the Spartans win a five-set thriller after falling behind by two sets.
“They’re going to be out to upset us, if you will, and we can’t let them come out and give them a two sets advantage again,” said Spartans head coach Dale Roth. “We won’t be able to come back from that in the finals, we have to match them point for point and look for those opportunities to score.
“They’re going to score on great plays, we’re going to score on great plays and it’s which one can find the most great plays.”
The FAC championship match is 7 p.m. at STS on Nov. 6. The senior girls final is a 6 p.m. start at Holy Trinity Academy as the Knights and Falcons do battle.
Foothills knocked off HTA in the boys semifinal on Nov. 4 in straight sets, avenging a regular season loss to the Knights.
“We had a tough match against them during the season and it was not our best game tonight by any means,” said Falcons head coach Ryan Hogan. “We were a little bit hectic on our defensive side of things.
“But once we got inside the red-zone, inside 20 points you saw we did what we needed to do and they finally started executing the way they were supposed to.”
The seesaw semifinal saw the Falcons win the first set 25-23 followed by 25-19 scores in both sets two and three.
Nolan Edwards put an exclamation point on the victory with a powerful service ace to close out the match.
“Even though we never really got into a great rhythm I don’t think we let (the Knights) either,” Hogan said. “I don’t think it was the strongest game from either team, I’ve seen them play significantly better as well. They had a tough challenge, they were down a setter (Calvin Herr) with an injury which always makes it harder.
“But we just didn’t ever really let them get rolling.”
The top-seed Spartans didn’t quite play to their potential in their semifinal, but did enough to get by the plucky Brant Christian School Eagles in four sets on Nov. 4.
“We actually struggled just getting our energy going and having our play go,” said Roth. “When we were playing well the score reflected our play. Brant has some really good players, they have a couple really good hitters and when we didn’t match that, we didn’t pass the ball, we didn’t play well, we just couldn’t put it together they came out ahead.”
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir won the first set 25-18, Brant came back to win set two 25-19 before the Spartans took sets three and four by 25-15 and 25-20 margins.
Roth said the team might have taken the semifinal as a formality rather than take the opportunity to show itself how well it could play.
“It’s really about for us finding our own system and staying in our own space in terms of head and what we know we’re capable of and playing to our fullest potential,” Roth added. “And not playing low energy, we just really need to be on our game and not worry so much about the other team, but finding our own flow.”
Following league play both the Spartans and Falcons boys are hosting their respective zone championships from Nov. 15-16.
“Every game that we play now has to be a championship game, there are no freebies at this point in the season,” Roth said. “And you’ve got to go out and play with that full on potential looking to do that and if you don’t the results aren’t going to go in your favour more often than not.”
