Toilers Advance To City League Final

The Peacock Toilers senior girls volleyball team is off to next week’s city league final after defeating the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons in three straight sets on Thursday evening.

The Toilers played a strong, balanced and aggressive game that pushed the Falcons to the limit. The Falcons fought back at times with brilliance but at other times their response could be typified as flat.

In the end the Toilers won 25 - 16, 25 - 21 and 21.

“Our girls came to play. It was exciting, it was fun,” Lorne Polupski co-coach of the Peacock Toilers said going on to emphasize despite the loss the Falcons are a great team.

“I’m super happy. That’s the least errors on serves that we made all year. We had a great first couple of months and then we hit some valleys here in the last little while but now they’re playing great. If we can keep that up we’re going to do good things,” Polupski said.

The Toilers played a great game especially when it came to serving.

“We served very well. Served a received very well. Played defence very well. I would say our whole game was on,” he said.

Polupski said the play was indicative of how much the Toilers had improved over the season.

“I just hope we can keep it up right into provincials.”

Peacock has an automatic berth into the 5A senior girls provincial championship as they will be hosting later this month.

At the time of the interview it was not determined who would face the Toilers in the city league final but he said playing either one would be fun.

Unfortunately for the Toilers this serge was in - MJ Independent photo

Despite being automatically entered in the provincial 5A finals as the host Polupski said the Toilers would like to win their way into the tournament.

“We want to win our way in. We’re hoping to but it’s tough. We have a very tough division. The south is always tough. It’s always been the top teams that win provincials come out of the south for the most part,” he said, adding “we’re in hard but we want it. We want that competition.”

Polupski said the middle played well and the MVP went to the whole team for how well they played.

Peacock Toilers co-coach Haylee Bevan said much of the team’s success on Thursday evening was a result of the players’ own individual initiatives.

“Something that helped us out with our preparedness tonight is not just the coaches. It’s not just us as coaches come up with a game plan. We actually put a lot of ownership on our team and individually. They each come and they watch. They scout. They watch game film. They make notes not just the coaches. And I think that is why we were prepared for tonight’s semi-final match.”

The Toilers celebrate a point - MJ Independent photo

Cornerstone Christian School Falcons head coach Lee Behrns said the Toilers were ready for the game. Meeting for the third year in a row with the Toilers in the semi-final wasn’t a charm for the Falcons.

“They (Peacock) came out all fired up. They came out excited. Peacock outplayed us in probably every part of the game. Probably where they outdid us in the biggest part of the game was serving. They outserved us. Hard serves and they picked their spots, he said, adding “we did a lot of terrible passing on our side through their hard serves.”

Behrns said there were times the team was overthinking and tried to be too accurate on their dumps when they simply needed to just get it inside the lines.

“Other teams would put them within the lines and we danced with danger putting them right near the line or out. I think it’s one thing the girls are going to have to learn for other teams at 23 or 24 (points) just in between the lines.”

Behrns said the Falcons had lots of big blocks.

“Peacock hit well from anywhere on the court. They were prepared and good to go,” he said.

Plans for the Falcons now is a run at 2A provincials starting with conferences this Saturday.

“By playing in this league, by playing with the big 4A and 5A and playing some big tournaments going to conference…this really, really prepares us,” Behrns said.

He said the Falcons had not lost two games in a row all season and so they were looking forward to a good conferences.

“We always rebound after a loss we just want it a little bit more.”

A spike attempt is blocked - MJ Independent photo

The Toilers will be up against the Vanier Spirits in the city league final after the Spirits managed to fight back from a 1 - 2 sets deficit against the Rouleau Rebels to take the game 3 - 2 in sets.

Last year’s provincial 1A champions had the Spirits seemingly crushed against the wall leading 2 - 1 in sets at one time.

The set scores were 25 - 19, 14 - 25, 17 - 25, 25 - 17 and 15 - 12 in Vanier’s favour.