Sports
November 20, 2008 08:14 PM
Mike Hayakawa
A month ago, the last thing Terry Wollenzien entertained was the thought of her Unionville High School Wolves junior boys’ volleyball team reaching the York Region Athletic Association tier one final.
But over the course of time, the Wolves head coach had a change of heart.
The players felt the same as they found themselves in last Friday’s final against the Milliken Mills Secondary School Knights and emerged with a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Thornlea Secondary School to claim the coveted title, their second in the last three years.
“If you had asked me one month ago if I thought we could win the York Region title I would have said no,” Wollenzien said. “But after last Wednesday’s playoff tournament, the guys found their game and we felt good. I thought we were just starting to peak.”
Where the players’ resolve surfaced was part way through the second set in which they trailed 22-17 to a feisty Knights team that claimed the first set 25-21.
It was at this point Wollenzien and assistant coach Brian Cho called a timeout and exhorted a message to their charges. “We just told the guys to ‘dig deep and play with your hearts’ and they did it,” recalled Wollenzien. “The boys found their game.”
The Wolves rallied to even the match with a dramatic 28-26 victory that was followed by a 15-6 win in the rubber game.
Despite winning the deciding game handily, Wollenzien had plenty of praise for the Knights.
“During the season we beat them the first time and the last time we played them they beat us. We knew this (the final) would be a tough game,” she said. “Milliken Mills is an amazing team. At the start of the game we made a lot of errors and they played error-free and had great defence but after we called time out in that second game, the boys rose to the occasion.”
Returning four players from last year’s team, Wollenzien attributed their run to the title as being a team effort.
Team members included: setter Chris Lam, power hitter Alex Lee, middle hitter Brandon Ha, libero Andy Choi, power Andrew Ban, middle Synge Chen, Grant Wallace, Rob Tevlin, Matthew Sham, Terrance Wong and Harry Yeung.
In other finals played Friday, the Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy senior boys won the tier two title with a 2-0 win (25-10, 25-14) over Keswick High School.
Sacred Heart Catholic High School won the senior tier one title with a 3-1 win (27-25, 23-25, 25-16, 25-21) over host Thornlea Secondary School and ESC Renaissance won the junior boys’ tier two title with a 2-1 victory (25-10, 25-22) over Alexander Mackenzie High School.