Sabres claim title with dramatic victory

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This article was published 27/11/2017 (2334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Seeded number one going into this year’s Provincial High School Boys ‘AAAA’ Junior Varsity Volleyball Championships, the SRSS Sabres were the favourties to win their second provincial junior varsity crown in the last four years.

They accomplished just that Monday night at the U of M, but it wasn’t easy as the St. Paul’s Crusaders, third ranked coming in, won the first two games of the best of five final, and were on the cusp of winning the championship, only to see the Sabres storm back to win the next three, spurred on by their hundreds of vocal supporters on hand at the Investors Group Atheltic Centre, there to witness it first hand.

St. Paul’s won the first two sets 25-18 and 27-25. With their backs against the wall, the Sabres eked out a 25-21 victory in the third set to keep their championship hopes alive and it set the stage for a lopsided 25-10 win in set four, as the Sabres clearly had the momentum on their side heading into the fifth and deciding set.

In that final set to 15, the Sabres took the lead only to see the Crusaders come back to tie it, before the Sabres eventually prevailed 18-16, setting off the perfunctory celebration with their supporters, who streamed on to the court en masse.

Asked how they were able to pull it off after being down in the match like they were, the Sabres’ Justin Gudmundson said, “we knew we could do it, it is something we have done before, this is a team that is so close on and off the court and it helped with our communication and we just started to get our confidence back, especially after winning that third set.”

The Sabres Paxton Koop was named Provincial Championship MVP while Tyson Koop and Tony Nickel were named Provincial All-Stars.

In the earlier girls final, Selkirk swept Brandon Vincent Massey, winning by scores 26-24, 25-8 and 25-23.