The streak of eight straight league titles came to a halt for the Peacock Toilers. This year, it was the Caronport Cougars that took home the gold medal, trophy and the title for senior girls volleyball on Thursday evening.
“It is really exhilarating and I am super proud of the girls, they did awesome,” said Grade 12 Cougar Beth Racic.
The Cougars showed up and kept their emotions in check the whole match, taking the match in three sets — 25-13, 25-16 and 25-16 at SIAST.
“SIAST is a unique experience that you can’t replicate anywhere else. I don’t know city finals that are this intense and it was a little bit of a shock to our system, but it is a really good learning opportunity for us. It is really good for us to be able to play in a setting like this,” explained Peacock’s coach Jenn Prokopetz. “We just chalk it up to one more experience that we’ve had as a team and we will go from here.”
The Cougars finished first overall in the league and had a strong season, winning a lot of sets and controlling not only their play on their side of the court, but also dictating the play and making their opponents make mistakes. Thursday evening was no different, as the Toilers seemed to make errors throughout the three matches.
“That happens where there is a little bit of pressure and an intense situation, but it is just one of those games,” said Prokopetz.
Caronport started the third set with four straight points before the Toilers scored their first point and were up 7-1 early in the set. Peacock did not hold a lead in any of the three sets.
“This feels good, very good. They came in really excited for this game,” said Caronport’s coach Shannon Koshman. “Our passing was very good, we didn’t have that many service errors and we just kept our side clean and forced them to make the mistakes.”
For more on this story, read an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
