Marauder boys fall short of provincials

Herald File Photo. The St. Mary Marauders celebrate a point during their home tournament earlier this season.

It wasn’t the storybook ending that the St. Mary Marauder boys volleyball team were hoping for, but it was still a successful campaign on the court.

St. Mary, who won the provincial title at Carlton last year, did not advance past the regional tournament in Lloydminster last weekend, finishing in third place. Only the top two teams advance to the provincial tournament in White City and Balgonie.

Marauder head coach Rene Quintal says he was proud of the season that St;. Mary had.

“I thought we played and competed at a real high level for the majority of the season. We were undefeated in Saskatchewan up until the regional championships where we had only four match losses and they were all to out of out of province teams. Up until the regional championships, we had a real successful season.”

In the regional tournament, the Marauders finished in third place posting a 2-2 record. St. Mary took care of business in their first two matches knocking off North Battleford and Warman in straight sets.

In their third match, St. Mary couldn’t get the finishing blow on Lloydminster, who rallied to take the match after being down in the third and deciding set. In their final match of the tournament, St. Mary would capture the first set against Carlton, but the Crusaders would rally to take the final two sets to claim the match and the regional title.

Quintal says the final result of the regional tournament was not what the Marauders were hoping for after putting themselves in the driver’s seat to start the day.

“As a whole, we were very disappointed because we needed to qualify for provincials and we didn’t. I thought we put ourselves in a good position from the start of the day to qualify, we had won our first two matches. In our third match, we were 14-9 in the third set with serve and unfortunately we didn’t capitalize on five consecutive match points. We got into a deuce game and we ended up losing the sets 27-25 to a real strong team from Lloydminster.”

The 2024 Marauders featured a large number of Grade 12 players, with nine players set to graduate this spring. Quintal says the graduating group of Grade 12 led by example for St. Mary all season long.

“They were very dedicated to the program for their time on the team starting in grade nine and moving up to grade 12, they were really committed to training hard in practice and doing their job. Competing, developing in the weight room and in the offseason. Unfortunately, when we needed them to gel together and play the best at a crucial time, nerves really set in for us. That’s unfortunate. You see that in all levels of sports. We had some really good comebacks throughout this whole season being down, some real big deficits and sets we were able to come back to win. Unfortunately, the tables turned for us (in regionals).”

Despite the shortcomings on the court, there will be plenty of positives for St. Mary off of it. With the team traveling together to tournaments through the season and many players playing for the Marauders for multiple years, plenty of close friendships have been formed.

Quintal says he is hopeful that those friendships continue to blossom and the adversity faced on the court will help his players face whatever challenges life brings them.

“We definitely were a real close group, both on and off the floor. They were really good friendships that were developed that were fostered on the courts and we’re going to see those friendships continue for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to qualify for provincial championships this weekend, but it didn’t take away anything from the accomplishments they achieved on the court this year.”

“For them to go through the tournament season and be undefeated against all Saskatchewan teams, there’s something to be proud of. Unfortunately, we didn’t execute when we needed to at the end of the season and we lost and that’s life. We’re going to have to be able to recover from it. Everybody on the team is going to have some type of adversity to fight through for the rest of their life and hopefully this is a good learning experience for all of them.”

sports@paherald.sk.ca

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