Gators survive sink-or-swim match T
Walnut Grove fights to advance to final eight at B.C. senior boys triple-A championships
he hometown Walnut Grove Gators may have one of the easiest drives to this week’s Big Kahuna B.C. senior boys volleyball triple-A championships at the Langley Events Centre.
Yet after suffering what had to be their worst day of the season to kick off the four-day event Wednesday, they might have created the toughest road through the elite 16-team draw.
Thankfully for them, as sudden-elimination play began Thursday, they took the first step back on their road to redemption.
Placed in the tournament’s top four-team pool based on their runner-up finish at the recent Fraser Valley championships, the Gators produced a winless Wednesday with losses to Kelowna, Van Tech and Semiahmoo.
That, coupled with a disastrous finish at the Fraser Valley zone tournament by Ladner’s Delta Pacers, added up to two teams that were ranked in the top four of the last provincial poll meeting to decide a berth into the final eight.
“But why not us?” Gators head coach Gary Lutes asked after Walnut Grove, behind a 23-kill performance by senior left-side hitter Brett Christensen, rallied from a first-set loss to eliminate the Pacers 3-1 (2325, 25-17, 25-23, 25-17) from title contention.
Added Walnut Grove’s 6-foot-8 middle blocker Andrew Goertzen: “After our games (Wednesday), we called a players meeting just to tell each other that this really was do or die. We all knew what we were capable of doing but we still had to come out and perform to our ability.”
Still, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking the rah-rah speeches had fallen on deaf ears because the Gators came out and dropped a tight opening set.
After that, however, the likes of Christensen, Goertzen and Ben Whiton found their groove and Walnut Grove’s size and cohesion eventually wore down a smaller Pacers team led by explosive hitter Keaton Mann.
“I’ll tell you, I’m thinking to myself that this happens to us a lot,” Lutes sighed of the Pacers early success. “Teams come out on fire against us, but it’s just been a matter of weathering the energy, matching it and then whittling away until we’re back in it.
And Brett (6-foot-5) and Andrew are not only big, they are like our big brothers out there.”
Neither of the pair is looking past the 9 a.m. quarter-final match Friday against Nanaimo’s Dover Bay Dolphins, however, and both are doing their best not to think about a senior boys basketball season that began earlier this week.
The pair will play through Saturday, take Sunday as their off-season, then hit the hard court Monday as key frontcourt forces on a Gators hoops team ranked No. 1 in The Province’s Big 10 quad-A poll. By next Thursday, they will be right back at the LEC to play in the annual Tsumura Basketball Invitational.
Both admit they are constantly asked which sport they favour and which they will play next season at the university level.
“I love them both so much that I can’t choose,” laughed Goertzen, who can extend his arms and jump to a height of 11-foot-6. “Brett and I physically prepared ourselves for this in the off-season. But we really focus on the one sport we play during that season. It’s going to be a tough choice to make.”
Adds Christensen: “That is a decision that really tears me up and my family apart. My dad is a volleyball guy, my mom’s sport is basketball. She’s starting to like volleyball more. But I am split between the two. I have no idea which way I am going.
“But,” he says before pausing, “we have some business to finish here first.”
All the triple-A quarter-final action begins Friday 9 a.m. Tournament favourite Kelowna meets Reynolds of Victoria on the Gators’ side of the draw. On the other side, it’s Semiahmoo meeting Earl Marriott in an all-Surrey derby and North Delta’s Seaquam Seahawks facing Vancouver’s Killarney Cougars, the latter a five-set upset winner over Van Tech.
The B.C. Double-A championships are also taking place this week at the LEC. Friday night’s semifinals for Double-A run concurrently at 5 p.m. with the triple-A following at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, the triple-A final goes at 5 p.m., followed by the Double-A final at 7 p.m.