17U. The nets
go up, and the teams are bigger, much bigger in some cases. Last season
Attack 15U Black had a great season in 16U, culminating in a 6th place finish at
last year's Tier 1 Provincials. With this history, this year's edition of
the Black team opened their indoor season at the 17U Provincial Cup in Whitby.
How would the new team fare?
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Pool Play
Attack
would win all three pool matches in straight sets to finish #1 in Pool
A. We opened the day against Stratford Stingers and it was a
good warm-up match in a sunlit gym. We got off to a good start
in game one winning 25-9. Everyone was a bit nervous and needed
to get their first match under their belt. Service errors cost
us a few points, but we came out with our trademark hard hitting.
We served hard and had fewer unforced errors in the second set and
closed the match with a 25-3 win.
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Next came South County Bandits who finished #7 in Ontario last year.
Again we hit the ball hard from all positions. Our new secret
weapon Tayler Mitchell came in at power near the end of the match and
had a key kill. Attack took the match in two sets, 25-16 and
25-16.
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After a
two hour break we faced our sister 17U team. This is a team that
has undergone more change this year than our own team and will do
great things this year; fortunately for us it is still early in
the season. We played very solid and 17U gave us a run for our
money in the first set, which we won 25-20. We had very strong
cross court hitting and quicks in the middle, and we threw in our
first tandem. With the girls learning some new plays this year
the timing is sometimes off, but this one was right on. We came
out harder in the second set and took the match 25-17.
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Play-offs
Our
cross-over match was against Aurora Storm, last years provincial 8th
place finishers. This was the biggest and hardest hitting team so far
with strong outside hitting down the line and great digging. We
continued to hit every ball hard and our blocking started to pick up.
Attack started out a bit slow but mounted a rally and caught up. The
rest of the first set was a see-saw battle with neither side able to
get more than a two point lead until Attack put away game one 27-25.
Game two was the much same, tied for much of the match. In the
end our superb defense and two key dumps at the net set us up to serve
it out and win 25-23.
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In the semi-finals we met cross-town rivals DRVC - last year's
Provincial bronze medalist. This is a team that is consistently
big and hits every ball hard. We dropped the first game 14-25
but came back to stun DRVC 25-16 in the second, with better blocking,
stronger hitting and very few service errors. We started out a bit
slow in the tie-breaker and could not catch up, losing 10-15.
Still, a very impressive effort against what is, at this point in the
season, the #1 17U team in the province.
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That left the bronze medal match against the Scarborough Vipers,
another big team with two very strong hitters. This was a match
marked by amazing defense on both sides and long rallies, incredible
digs and hard
hitting. But our girls were looking a bit tired and committed
a few too many unforced errors. Still we were very close, losing the
first set 24-26. The second set was a similar battle but we pulled
it out 27-25. We were close in the tie breaker but service
errors gave it to Scarborough, 12-15.
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Seeded #4
in Four
The focus
at this tournament was to develop the team, to try a few things out
and get a look at the team in action, and see what needs to be fixed.
Chris and Melissa set the line-ups to build team experience rather
than to win, which makes the results even more significant. Many
players played at a variety of positions, and our all star middle
Rebecca Glancy had some extra rest to recover from a back injury.
Still, Attack Black took two of the top three 17U teams in the province to
close tie-breakers.
Attack
has re-asserted its reputation as a very hard-hitting team with strong,
scrappy defense, and the height to take on the biggest teams. We now have a second Durham Attack contender
for top provincial 17U honours this year. We'll be seeded #4 in
four weeks in Windsor where we plan to face the top teams again and
are looking forward to the rematch.
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