The Swift Current 14U Boys Junior SunDogs brought home a silver medal from the Saskatchewan Volleyball Association Conexus Provincial Championships in Saskatoon over the weekend. The SunDogs finished with four wins and three losses to place second out of 20 teams at provincials after entering the weekend ranked eighth.
The tournament kicked off with round robin games Friday night with a match against the Rouleau Rebels Black. Losing two of the three sets the Jr. Sundogs continued to struggle against the Rebels as they have all season.
Tournament play continued Saturday with a two-set loss to Yorkton and rebounding with a two-set win over the Prince Albert Smashing Bananas team Black to finish third in their pool.
Playoffs took place mid afternoon on Saturday with a third versus fourth match to determine seeding going into the quarter-finals. The match ended in a win for the Sundogs in three sets (15-25, 25-16, 15-8) over the Rose Valley Volleyball Club.
Sunday’s quarterfinal match versus the Lloydminster Rustlers didn’t start out well for the Sundogs, but they managed to pull through late in the match to put them in the medal round with a 15-11 win in the third set.
The semi-final match once again had the Sundogs up against Rouleau. The Jr. Sundogs prevailed when it counted the most bringing their best game play of the season and giving them a two-set win over the Rebels (25-21, 25-8) and putting them in the provincial gold medal game.
The gold medal match against the Prince Albert Smashing Bananas Team Gold didn’t start out the way the Sundogs had hoped. Struggling early in the match they we unable to recover losing the first set 11-25. The second set started much the same as the Junior Sundogs struggled early but began to battle back for a 25-22 win to force a third set. Unable to hold the momentum from the second set win, the SunDogs lost to the Bananas 7-15, giving them the silver medals.
