By: Callie W. ’25, Georgia S. ’25, and Jena K. ’25 (Team Captains)
Our Grade 9 volleyball season was a straight hill climb with coach Rathwell leading the way. We all stayed together and worked as a team to bring the banner to STS. We competed in two out of town tournaments. Our first one was in Strathmore and it was early in the season so we were able to practice our new court rotation. We then competed in Three Hills and overtook Hanna in the final to win the tournament with some outstanding serving. Our team went undefeated in the regular league season. We sailed through the semi-finals to advance to meet the JP II team in the League Final. We went to a third set that had our parents sitting on the edge of theirs seats and I’m sure coach Rathwell pulled out a hair or two. We landed on top 19-17 with some consistent serving for the final few points.
The team travelled to Carstairs during the wellness break to compete in the Zone Championships. We won all of our round robin games. Drumheller was our biggest competition and we had a feeling we would meet them and their loud cheering fans in the finals. In the final game we met the Drumheller team again. Coach Rathwell kept us focused on sportsmanship and playing on our side of the court. We were extremely focused for our first set winning 25-11. We lost the second set in a close battle, and moved to the final set. We won the Zone Banner with effort that was put in by everyone on team. We cheered each other on from the bench and had lots of laughs in the long wait times between games. We are the JJJ South Central Zone Champs!!