The Holy Trinity Academy Knights are comfortable playing with the bigger schools in senior girls volleyball. HTA clinched first-place in the Foothills Athletic Council by sweeping their rivals to the south, the Foothills Falcons, 3-0 Oct.
The Holy Trinity Academy Knights are comfortable playing with the bigger schools in senior girls volleyball.
HTA clinched first-place in the Foothills Athletic Council by sweeping their rivals to the south, the Foothills Falcons, 3-0 Oct. 26 at the Comp.
The Knights improved to 6-0 in the council while the Falcons dropped to 5-1.
HTA also found it was ranked no. 10 among 4A schools (over 800 students) earlier this month in the Alberta high school rankings.
“We have been competitive at 4A and we are really happy with that,” said Knights coach Crystal Anderson. “We have cohesion – all 12 girls are pretty strong this year – to the point that I have a hard time determining who is going to be on the floor.”
Holy Trinity Academy has hovered near, but never broke, the magic 799-student enrolment number to move them up from 3A to 4A until this September.
Now HTA has to compete with the big girls, the Western Canadas, EP Scarletts and Foothills Falcons of the provincial girls volleyball world.
A tough row to hoe, but the Knights have the tools to do it.
“We have predominately Grade 12 players — eight of them,” Anderson said. “They all play club at a very high-level.”
The Knights are led by the hard-hitting Annelise Hielema at power who pounded the Falcons gym floor. Julia Simard also pummeled the ball for the Knights.
HTA captain and setter Dora Komlodi not only put the ball in the right spot for the heavy hitters, she also found some open space on the opposition's side of the court.
“Dora played very smart with her tips,” Anderson said. “She had very strong serves, smart play, tipping the ball – seeing the open spots. She had a good game tonight.”
Falcons coach Corey Cowper said his team would learn from the experience.
“I got to see what I wanted to see and got to play all my players,” Cowper said. “We're ready to move on to the next one.”
There's little room for error against the Knights.
“HTA is solid, you can't afford to make mistakes against them, we did and that hurt us,” Cowper said. “The good thing is we can fix it.”
The council playoffs start next week with HTA getting a bye to the semifinals. The Falcons host High River's Notre Dame Collegiate in one quarterfinal Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. The Oilfields Drillers travel to Strathcona-Tweedsmuir to play the Spartans on Nov. 2 at 6 p.m.
As for the Knights' sweep over Foothills, that's yesterday's news. The two teams could meet as early as this weekend at the Foothills Falcons Classic on Friday and Saturday.
The tournament features the no. 1 ranked 4A girls team in the province, the Western Canada RedHawks, who will play the Knights Saturday a 12:15 p.m. at the Crescent Point Field House.
