Vanier win high school boys volleyball championship Vikings complete perfect season in Moose Jaw league

The Vanier Vikings didn’t need a lot of extra motivation heading into their Moose Jaw high school boys volleyball league championship final, but an hour before the title game was set to start, they got it.

A few blocks away, the Vanier Spirits girls team had just won their first city title since 1993, in an upset win over the Peacock Toilers. That meant the undefeated Vikings had a chance to cap-off something that had never happened in Moose Jaw league history – a Vanier sweep of both high school volleyball championships.

They weren’t about to let the opportunity go to waste. The Vikings put together one of their most commanding performances of the season, rolling to a 3-0 (25-11, 2514, 25-17) win over the Central Cyclones in front of a raucous crowd of supporters packing the Ned Andreoni gymnasium.

“We were on a mission,” said Vikings Grade 12 middle Riley Follensbee. “It feels really good, especially on a 12-0 season, I think we proved our point that we were hungry for a championship... we dominated all season and we wanted to just put an exclamation point on it all.” While Follensbee admitted to feeling a bit nervous heading into the contest, Vikings coach Levi Broda said one would never know based on what he’d seen from his team leading up to the first serve.

“It’s amazing what a year can do,” Broda said. “A lot of these guys came out on the short-end last year, but they just seemed to have this calmness about them this year. I was going crazy in the school, just running around, and every time I’d see one of the boys, they were like ‘been there, done that’ and it increased my confidence that we were going to come out and perform and execute the way we needed to.”

Not that there was concern of their capabilities – the Vikings had show all through their 10-0 regular season that they were capable of picking their game up a notch or two when necessary.

“The kids worked so hard all year and showed that they’re a really consistent squad,” Broda lauded. “We were 11 deep and you could pop anyone in anywhere, anytime, and we could put people in a lot of different places... Central came out hard and made us earn every point, but we were able to serve tough and keep down the errors; their athleticism really took over.”

And when the final point fell, history was made.

“It was a really special night for our school,” Broda said. “I think it really had an impact when we saw what the girls had done earlier and then coming in and taking care of business in our own gym.”

Follensbee had an additional take on the impressive sweep – their junior boys also won their city title and junior girls reached the final.

“Just imagine if the junior girls had won, too, it would have been crazy,” he said. “But Vanier in the final, four out of four? I’ll take that.”

The Vikings were back in action this past weekend at the provincial 4A boys championship, with results unavailable as of press time.