It was a magical weekend for the Border Valley School’s grade 8 girls’ volleyball team, as they battled hard, eventually winning the Zone 4 championship banner in a thrilling final set.
Recapping the weekend
One of the coaches, Heidi Franz, says the team is still riding the high of such an emotional weekend, capped off by a thrilling win in the final set. “So we are from Border Valley School. We’re a pretty small school in southern Manitoba, and we had six girls who tried out for a team, and we took all six because, for volleyball, you need six on the court. We had our final tournament on Saturday. So we played the round robin, where we had two games for that. We won both of those games, so then we were top in our pool. We had to play some pretty difficult teams coming in. We were undefeated going into the tournament, and then we kept going and kept going, and we played Altona in the finals, and they played hard. Won the first set, but they pushed us pretty hard. Then the final set, we were down 13 to 21, and I thought, okay, we’re done. We’re going to a third set. We’ll reset and see how this can all play out. But then we end up coming back. The girls played very hard, and they were very tired, but they pushed through, and they came back, and we won that final set 27 to 25.”
Celebration time
After such an emotional final match on top of all the work that went into getting to the finals in the first place, Franz says seeing the girls embrace as winners was a special moment. “We were very proud of them,” she says with a big grin. “The other coach, Martha Drieger, and I, we were very excited for them, very proud of them. But we were also very impressed that they were very humble. They had pushed hard and played hard, and they wanted it really bad, obviously. But they were very humble in how they celebrated, but excited, and then respected the other team and presented the banner to us, and then we took a bunch of pictures.”
Special group of student-athletes
Franz says the connections this group has run deep, and it’s helped them find success. “So I am a grade eight teacher, so all of these students are actually in my class, and I have taught them last year as well. So I knew coming in, this was going to be a special year. They’re all really good friends on and off the court. They all do other sports as well, together and go to each other’s houses and socialize as well. If there was going to be a year to bring home the banner, this was going to be the year. So we were hoping for it, but we didn’t know. Altona definitely gave us a run for our money right at the end there.”
Life-long friendships through sport
As a coach and teacher, Franz sees firsthand the impact athletics has on kids, building strong friendships, and she greatly values it. “There’s a different bond that gets formed off the court in the classroom, but there’s a special one that also gets formed when it’s on the court, and you have to rely on them. Try not to get too frustrated, but supporting each other in different roles, I think, is important on and off the court as well.”
Dedication and passion
Franz couldn’t be prouder of the group for how they went about winning, how they were humble after, but she says she might be the proudest when it comes to just how dedicated and determined the group was to be special. “They were all in. They were dedicated. We had practice twice a week. We had, sometimes, extra serving practice. They were asking, ‘Can we practice?’ ‘Can we practice?’ They were very dedicated, and they wanted this, and they all love volleyball a lot, so they were very willing to go the extra mile for this one for sure.”
The future
Looking down the road, Franz says this group is going to do special things in the game of volleyball, no matter where they end up. “I know there is a tryout for the club volleyball this coming weekend, so I know most of them are going to try out for that. They’ve been chatting about that and trying to get extra practice even now that our season is over. They want extra practice. They’ve been doing serving practice throughout the week to get ready for the club volleyball, and I know a bunch of them will try out next year for high school as well. So they’re looking forward. Volleyball is their life. They love it.”
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