Holy Redeemer’s outstanding Volleyball Program
The Holy Redeemer Athletics Program has started off the 2018 season extremely well. Thus far, their Football team is off to a 3-1 start on the season, while their Cross Country team took home the Team Banner at the Junior High Meet. And now their Volleyball Program is making some big waves by winning some very competitive tournaments.
On the weekend of October 13, all four Junior Rebels teams and their Senior Boys and Senior Girls teams were all in action at tournaments across the region.
The Junior teams travelled to Hinton for the weekend where the Junior A Boys and Junior A Girls both won the gold medal in the A division. The Boys defeated Niton in the gold medal game. One key player in the game was Levi Beckmann who was a vital defensive and offensive player. “He only started playing volleyball last year, but is quickly learning the game and becoming one of our most valuable players on the court,” says Head Coach Melanie MacDonald-Winsor. Jadon Brown also had a great day where he played the first eight sets, then left to play a hockey game (which he won) and came back in time to play in the gold medal game. “The entire team worked very hard playing a total of 12 sets in one day,” says MacDonaldWinsor. “I was so impressed with their endurance!”
The Junior B Boys also won the gold medal in their division at the same tournament in Hinton after defeating Gerard Redmond, Mountain View and Pine Grove. The Rebels then advanced to the semi-final where they played Mountain View again and won decisively. The gold medal match saw the Edson squad playing Gerard Redmond again winning the best of three in two straight sets.
Over on the senior side of things, the Senior teams travelled to Whitecourt for a very competitive tournament. The Senior Boys had an incredible first day where they won all three of their round robin games and finished first in their pool to advance to the Tier I finals on the second day. After losing some close games in the Tier I division, the Rebels ended up in seventh place out of 16 teams. A commendable effort considering the extreme competitiveness of the tournament.
Meanwhile, the Senior Girls finished in second place in the Tier II Division in Whitecourt.
“Overall it was a very competitive weekend,” says Senior Girls Head Coach Julie Rothwell. “We really wanted to make some strides in continuing to improve our volleyball program. This weekend of games really moved us in that direction.” And with a month left in the 2018 season, you can count on the Rebels squads to continue to get more and more competitive.