With only 12 senior girls that attend Rouleau School, nine of those girls play volleyball. Although it is difficult to play against local high schools that have over 100 female athletes, the Rebels have held their own recently and Tuesday evening was no different.
“We have to give 100 per cent all the time and be in full attack mode or else we don’t have a chance against the bigger schools,” stated Darrel Hall, coach for the Rebels.
The Rebels got stronger with each set, but fell 25-14, 25-18 and 25-23 to the Vanier Spirits in senior girls volleyball league action.
A three set game was exactly what the Spirits were looking for prior to the game.
“Better in three sets as we get done early and gives the girls some time to rest. That was our main focus tonight, we wanted to be done in three,” said Rick Bell, head coach of the Spirits. “I thought it was a good, all around match. We had a couple moments where we let them battle back in and they had a couple good servers and that got them some points.”
Battle is what this Rebel team does throughout the game and for every point. They may not have many reserves on the bench, but the team works hard each game. Elizabeth Chernick had a good game at the net and Danielle Large was strong at the setter position for the Rebels.
“There were times when they were on fire and times when the girls had good and bad moments,” said Hall.
The Spirits tried to run the game a little different than normal, with the coaches being silent on the bench and allowing the six girls on the court figure out the plan of attack and how to run the play.
“The girls found a way to win and that’s what we are hoping for. We tried to remain silent on the bench and let them figure it out themselves and put it all together in a game and that’s what they did,” explained Bell. “Our communication was good. We tried some things differently tonight as our middle broke her wrist playing soccer, so we had to do some things different and put some girls in some points there are used to. It was kind of experimentation, but they worked through it and talked to each other.”
Communication is still an area that the Rebels need to fix, as three players collided as they aggressively went for the ball, resulting in Brooke Schultz leaving the game due to an ankle injury in the third set.
“That’s a big thing and that’s how Brooke’s injury happened. There was no clear call and three girls going for the ball and Brooke went down and took the worst of it,” explained Hall. “Communication can certainly be fixed in practice.”
The Rebels will be looking to add to their bronze and silver medals from tournaments when they travel to Coronach in a couple weeks.
