Tier 1 champs
The Russell High School T-Wolves Senior girls volleyball team moved up to Tier 1 after taking a tournament in Casselman on Tues., Dec. 18 in PRSSAA. The winning team members are: front from left, Tiffany Yeung and Viola Lorenzi. Back from left, Abby Sinden, Emma Gillingham, Maddie Davis, Emily Vandemheen and Emily Kingswood. Courtesy photo
Kevin Kennedy
Special to the Record
RUSSELL—The Russell High School T-Wolves’ Senior girls volleyball team is heading back to Tier 1 for the first time in several years. A few weeks ago the T-Wolves set a goal of winning the Dec.18 tournament.
The T-Wolves improved every week, getting more wins at each tournament and continuing to practice three days a week. They won seven sets at the Dec. 11 tournament and decided to set a new goal for Dec. 18, which was to win 10 sets (five matches) including the finals and make it to Tier 1.
So that’s what they did. The T-Wolves beat the top team, Embrun, 25-18, 25-20 to start the day. That game pretty much decided if the girls had a chance to get to the finals or not.
The T-Wolves then beat St. FX 2-0, Rockland 2-0 and VCI 2-1 (after losing the first set). In the finals they lost the first set again 25-17, started strong in the second set but found themselves down 16-9.
The T-Wolves took a timeout to regroup and remind themselves that they didn’t make it to the finals to quit. As coach I realized later the significance/coincidence of our timeout.
It was 16-9, the other team needed nine to win and the T-Wolves needed 16. They started chipping away. The game went back and forth and the T-Wolves closed the gap to 22-21.
La Seigneurie took a timeout and then another one when the T-Wolves had taken a 24-22 lead.
The T-Wolves won on the next point to push it to a third set. In the third, the girls jumped out to an 8-3 lead and won it 15-11 to complete the comeback.
