The Frontier Collegiate Raiders girls' volleyball team picked up a big win in the opening tournament of the season in Creighton.
Six teams took part in the Creighton tournament, including three from the immediate area - the host Kodiaks, the Hapnot junior varsity Kweens and the Raiders, hailing from Cranberry Portage. The La Ronge Churchill Chargers, Margaret Barbour Collegiate (MBCI) Spartans from The Pas and Kamsack’s Spartans rounded out the field.
After five games for each team, Frontier finished in top spot, winning eight of 10 sets and beating Creighton, La Ronge and Kamsack in straight sets. Creighton came second with a 8-2 record as well, but lost to Frontier in the round robin. Hapnot finished fourth, going 6-4, including a dramatic first-set comeback against MBCI, where the Kweens went down 10-0 to start before forcing a 27-25 tiebreaker set win.
With Kamsack and La Ronge finishing fifth and sixth, it would prove to be an almost exclusively local semifinal - first-seeded Frontier against fourth-seeded Hapnot, then second-seed Creighton against third-seed MBCI. Frontier clinched a spot in the final, defeating the Kweens, then Creighton knocked off the Spartans, setting up a Raiders-Kodiaks final Saturday night.
In their home gym, the Kodiaks took the opening set, but Frontier would march back, winning the second set and forcing a first-to-15 tournament-deciding third set. In that set, the Raiders would come out ahead and finish up, winning 15-11 and getting the tournament title.
Hapnot seniors
The senior Kweens squad was not playing in Creighton, instead heading down south to Elton, Man. for the Elton Sabres Invitational tournament Sept. 22-23.
The team’s first tournament of the season was an eight-squad meetup, with two groups of four squaring off. In their group, Hapnot faced Somerset’s Prairie Mountain High Predators, the Major Pratt Trojans from Russell and the Killarney Raiders.
In pool play, the Kweens took both sets against Prairie Mountain and Killarney, beating the Predators 25-23, 25-18 and staving off the Raiders with a 25-17, 25-10 win. Hapnot didn’t have the same luck against Major Pratt, losing 12-25, 22-25 and finishing second in the pool.
That was enough to get the Kweens into the playoff tournament, where they would face the Carberry Cougars in their first matchup. The Cougars provided a challenge, even taking a set win against the Kweens, but a 15-5 third and final set put Hapnot into the semis against the host Elton Sabres. The Sabres would prove too powerful for the Kweens, beating them 15-25, 22-25 and ending Hapnot’s hopes of first place, but they would still snag a podium finish, beating the Hamiota Huskies 22-25, 25-16, 15-12 despite losing the first set.
