The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The story of the pre-zone tournament hosted by Hapnot Collegiate is how one team mostly showed up, while another didn't. The senior varsity (SV) Kopper Kings and the Creighton Kodiaks SV girls played the RD Parker Collegiate Trojan teams in the final. The Kopper Kings came from behind in sets to defeat their rivals while the Kodiaks didn't show up for the first game, then gave a better showing in the second. "I thought we won the tournament playing at 75 per cent," says Craig McIntosh, coach of Hapnot's SV boys Kopper Kings. The Kopper Kings played in front of a solid home crowd, but that may have hurt the team during their first set as McIntosh felt his players weren't "thinking what do to during the game..." After losing the first set 15-25, the team rebounded to win 25-17, 15-9. "The team really showed character being down," McIntosh says. "I think our guys did enough to win, but it won't be enough for provincials." The Kopper Kings coach felt that Chad Ticzon was a bit off with executing his sets until gaining composure. McIntosh also noted that his seniors didn't have their heads in the right place, but he liked the improved blocking. It was a different story against the Trojan girls for the Kodiaks. An unfortunate performance witnessed by the eyes of coach Jason Straile as his team couldn't defeat the Trojans, who easily handled the Kodiaks in the first set 25-7, but improved in the second set losing 25-18. "It's a very young team and they have never been in a position to challenge for first place," he says. "The girls are very happy with that (second place) finish." "I was most disappointed with standing around," says Straile of his players in the first set. "They weren't fired up for the game. That concerned me before the game." Straile thinks it's possible that tiredness may have played a factor, but says his team was "so high off the Hapnot win." The Kodiaks earned the right to play the Trojans after defeating the SV Kopper Kweens 2-1. The only game that wasn't close was the Kopper Kweens second set victory by 10 points. The Kodiaks deserved to win as they battled the Kopper Kweens hard in what proved to be an entertaining game. Even though his Kopper Kweens didn't play the Trojans, coach Ken Kittle was pleased with his team's play. "Not really disappointed," Kittle says, following the loss to the Kodiaks. "More happy that we're starting to play as a team. Sure, it would have been nice to win, but if we keep on improving, we should be okay." The Kopper Kweens finished tops in their pool and third in the tournament. They will join the Kopper Kings in the zones this weekend.
