Senior Girls Volleyball
The SMUS Senior Girls Volleyball team captured a silver medal at the Vancouver Island AA Championships held this past weekend in Comox, ultimately locking up a berth in the BC AA Championship.
SMUS entered the tournament as the third seed from the South Island but managed to win its preliminary pool.
The Blue Jags opened pool play in front of a packed and extremely loud Highland Secondary gym crowd, losing in three sets to the home-court Raiders by 17-25, 25-18, 11-15 scores. However, SMUS bounced back to win its next two pool matches.
In a tight contest against, Pacific Christian – the South’s top seed – the Blue Jags collectively began to find their groove with notable improvements in both serve receive and defence, winning in three sets by 14-25, 25-28,15-11 scores. Indigo Edgington and Charlie Anderson were honoured as SMUS Players of the Game in that contest.
SMUS closed preliminary play with a 25-15, 25-19 sweep of Brooks, the fourth seed from the North Island. The Blue Jags controlled the match and finally found their serve game. They also got notable blocking from Izzy LeRoy and Kate Fraser, who was named Player of the Game.
A tie-breaker was necessary to determine the standings after pool play, which resulted in SMUS finishing first and earning a berth into Saturday’s semifinals.
Brooks beat Lambrick Park in a quarterfinal match, giving the Powell River squad the right to face the Blue Jags again in the best-of-five semifinal, with a berth in the BC Championships on the line. SMUS continued with its controlled play and efficient team system defensive play, with key backcourt contributions from Sienna Shanks and Nicola Bevington, as it again swept Brooks – this time by 25-19, 25-16, 25-11 scores. Shanks was the Player of the Game for SMUS in that match.
The Blue Jags then moved on to the best-of-five Island final against Brentwood College, the North No. 1 seed and BC’s fourth-ranked team. Brentwood controlled the first set 25-12 as the SMUS defensive system was adjusting to its opponent’s multidimensional offence. Brentwood won the second set 25-18 with the Blue Jags getting solid serving from LeRoy and Yanyu Zhang and better serve receive from its passers. SMUS found its groove as its defence keyed in on Brentwood’s offensive attacks in a 26-24 loss in the third set with both Anderson and Fraser putting the Brentwood defence in trouble.
The Blue Jags now prepare for the BC tournament, which will be hosted Nov. 28 to 30 by Brentwood.
Senior Boys Volleyball
The SMUS Blue Jags came within one win of qualifying for the BC Championships and ultimately finished fourth at the Vancouver Island Senior Boys AA Championships this past weekend at Lambrick Park.
SMUS advanced to Saturday’s Island semifinal, where it fell 25-21, 25-15, 25-19 to the host and provincially ranked Lions. Only the top two teams from the Island tournament qualified for the BC AA boys’ tournament.
In the third-place match, the Blue Jags gave Mark Isfeld of Courtenay a tremendous battle before succumbing to the Ice, BC’s eighth-ranked team, by 24-26, 25-11, 25-21, 22-25 and 12-15 scores. Earlier in the day, the Ice were upset by Pacific Christian, which will join Lambrick as Island representatives in the provincial tournament.
“The boys played well and have really improved considering that, at the beginning of the season when we played Isfeld, we lost 25-10,” said SMUS Head Coach Brady Doland. “Good for our team for pushing a Top 10 provincially ranked team to five sets and, honestly, it could have gone either way . . . It’s a true testament to how far they’ve come.”
SMUS finished round-robin play with a 2-1 record after beating Gulf Islands Secondary 2-0 and Vic High 2-1 and losing an earlier hard-fought match against Isfeld, this time by 29-31 and 22-25 scores. Those results moved them into an early quarterfinal on Saturday, where they beat a strong Nanaimo Wellington team by 25-23, 25-18 scores.
“Congratulations to the team for finishing second in the city and fourth on the Island,” Doland said. “Shout out to our Grade 12 players – captain and setter Connor Kipling, middles Elliot Mairet and Braxton Lechner, outside power hitters Brody Harris and Cohen Labrecque, right side hitters Jacob Meadows and Noah Melo, and libero defensive specialist Ryan Liu.
“This team battled hard all season, competing in five tournaments and traveling to both the Mainland and North Island . . . Through injuries and illness, they showed incredible resilience and determination. We couldn’t be prouder of every player on this team.”
Senior Boys Soccer
The SMUS Senior Boys Soccer team kicked off the 16-team BC AA Championship tournament with a 9 am matchup on Monday, Nov. 18, against the Pacific Academy Breakers of Surrey.
The Blue Jags, the No. 2 Vancouver Island seed, are in Preliminary Pool A at the provincial tournament, along with Pacific Academy, Nelson’s LV Rogers, and Langley Christian. In other pool games, SMUS was scheduled to meet LV Rogers at 12:45 pm on Monday and Langley Christian at 11 am on Tuesday.
“Our goal is to get a strong start in our first game and go up early,” said SMUS Head Coach Evan Fryer. “With the games featuring only 35-minute halves, we have to capitalize on all our chances.”
Prior to the tournament beginning, Fryer predicted that Langley Christian, the top Fraser Valley squad, would provide the Blue Jags’ toughest competition in pool play.
“We tied them last year in a cross-over game at provincials and lost in a PK shootout to them, so will look for some redemption there,” he said.
Other teams competing in the BC tournament include Brentwood College, Burnaby's Byrne Creek, South Kamloops, St. Thomas Aquinas of Burnaby, Charles Hayes of Prince Rupert, Richmond’s Hugh McRoberts, Kalamalka, North Vancouver Windsor, Langley Fundamental, Mark Isfeld, Vanderhoof's Nechako Valley and Windermere of Vancouver.
The top team from each of the tournament’s four pools will meet in Tuesday afternoon’s semifinal games with the championship final set for 11:30 am on Wednesday. Some of the games from the tournament are being live streamed by BCSS including the Blue Jags’ second pool game on Monday and potentially more SMUS action depending on which field they are assigned to.
Squash
Nineteen members of the SMUS Senior Squash team competed at the Shawnigan Lake Junior Open on Friday, highlighted by three first-place finishes by Blue Jag players.
In Tier 1, Max Arndt placed second while SMUS teammate Kieran MacKay was third.
Carsten Rodger finished first in Tier 2 while Elliot Judson placed first in Tier 3. Teammates Charlie Chae and Nick Nguyen were second and third in Tier 3, respectively.
Wilson Kong of SMUS was second in Tier 4. Gavin Alexander placed first in Tier 5 while teammate Ben Cusack finished second in that tier and Arpit Birdi third.
Twenty-four SMUS athletes will compete in the UVic Open this coming weekend.
