The Foothills Falcons made up for lost time with a victory one season in the making.
Foothills shook off the best version of the Holy Trinity Academy Knights they’ve seen all season to win the 4A South Central Zone senior boys volleyball banner 3-1 (25-23, 19-25, 25-16, 25-20) to push their way back into provincials after missing out in 2016.
“We have a lot guys from JV who didn’t win the zones last year either, they know the feeling of losing a championship too,” said Falcons coach Matt Armstrong. “Those four guys that we have from the team last year that didn’t get to go provincials, seeing them last year and now this is a great response to come back with that fire.
“You want to be the ones going, you don’t want your season to end today.”
Neither squad did.
The Knights, very much the underdogs coming in, were more than up for the challenge. HTA led by as many as five points late in the opening set only to have Foothills chip away late and take the opener on a terrific rally capped off by a Matt Greenshields kill.
“They came out and didn’t let anything hit the ground,” Armstrong said. “Their defence got the ball up consistently and kept firing it back at us until we made the error. Tough to play against when you’re playing a team that’s digging everything up.”
The Knights took the momentum right back in the second set with Ryan Peters playing a leading role in the visitor’s 13-7 advantage. HTA took the set 25-19 to even the score.
“There wasn’t a lot of hope coming in because we haven’t beat them this year,” said Grade 12 Knight Isaiah Michel. “We looked at the positives in the first game, looked more at the fact we were close than the fact we lost.
“After the first set we definitely picked up and tried our hardest. They’re a solid team.”
Some adjustments in the third and fourth sets on offence paved the way for a Foothills surge.
The Falcons took 10 of the first 15 points in the third set and comfortably won by a 25-16 count.
“Giving Kyle Tarasoff a lot more volume outside was huge for him,” Armstrong said. “Because he was swinging well and the passing wasn’t quite on for us today so it was difficult to get him the ball in the middle. By moving him outside he gets a lot more of those balls that he can put away.”
The fourth set saw a seesaw start with the teams locked up at 14-14. A huge block from Greenshields and an Eric Meyer kill on consecutive plays gave Foothills the momentum.
Tarasoff closed out the match with three straight points, a pair of kills sandwiched in between by a key block at the net to take the fourth and final set by a 25-20 score.
“It felt great,” said Tarasoff. “We didn’t get there last year so it’s good to see improvement this year.
“They came out strong and definitely focused really well on defence. We had to step it up another level.”
The script was flipped from one year ago.
The Knights won the 4A banner last season at the Falcons’ expense.
“It’s a little sad, but it was a fun game and I’m happy to end it on a good note,” Michel said.
The Falcons can take confidence in their matchups with potential opposition at provincials having taken games versus the likes of Catholic Central, Bishop O’Byrne and Centennial and taken powerhouse Notre Dame to three sets.
“We want to be in that top-eight, top-five realm. That’s our goal,” Armstrong added. “We’ve beaten a lot of teams that are going to this tournament. We’re definitely not going in scared, we’re going in focused.
“We’ve got to play our game regardless of who we’re going to play and we can’t question the outcome.”
The Falcons are going into this week’s provincial championships as the eighth-seed in the 12-team tourney. The 4A senior boys and girls volleyball championships run Nov. 22-25 in Medicine Hat.
