Woodland volleyball squad heads to provincials

The Woodland Christian High School senior girls’ volleyball team is heading to OFSAA.

With a decisive straight sets victory (25-20, 25-16, 25-20) over Kincardine District Secondary School February 26 in Chesley, the squad claimed the A Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association title, booking their ticket to the province’s top high school sports event.

“The team is thrilled,” head coach Jamie Wright said. “This is the first (girls’ volleyball) CWOSSA title for our school since 2008, so the team is very excited about that. The girls are pumped.”

The Cavaliers finished the regular season third in the District 8 Athletic Association standings with a 10-4 record.

In the playoffs, the Cavs advanced to the finals before falling to Resurrection Catholic Secondary School in a tightly contested match (28-30, 24-26, 23-25).

It has been a solid season, Wright said, adding the team has picked up its play of late.

“We’ve been building momentum over the past few weeks having gone through the provincial Christian schools’ championships and then our district playoffs where we made the finals before losing a close battle. We played some excellent volleyball over that stretch and capped it off with a great day at CWOSSA.”

The group has worked hard and excelled at playing as a team, Wright said.

And they have shown the ability to overcome adversity.

“One thing that I think is important to know about our season is that it has been challenging at times in terms of injuries,” Wright explained. “We’ve had a number of significant injuries to many of the players on the team throughout the season. We came into the season with some lofty goals and high expectations, but it has been really challenging to try and work through all of the injuries we have had. Then, because of that, it has also been really exciting to see all of the progress and success that has come despite all of that.”

The injury woes have shown just how deep the team is, allowing players the opportunity to get more playing time and really develop their game, Wright added.

“There have been so many players who have been able to step up when players went down. These are players that have shown that they are smart enough to be able to learn new positions when needed and have been able to pick it up quickly, sometimes at a moment’s notice. There have been girls who have been willing to jump into new situations and try to figure it out knowing that they might make some mistakes, but they filled in and did a great job.”

The WCHS Cavs go for gold at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations tournament March 9-11 in Hamilton.