Dan Burgess knew it would be a tough task and he was right on the money.
The head coach of the South Delta Secondary senior girls’ volleyball team said he was pleased with the team’s effort after they dropped the bronze medal final 2-0 to Yale Saturday afternoon to finish fourth in the AAAA provincial championships.
South Delta opened power pool play on Thursday in the top pool at the tournament with a 2-0 win over Okanagan-Mission.
The Sun Devils then dropped a 2-0 match to Yale and a 2-0 match to Riverside to place them third in pool A when the round of 16 playoffs started Friday.
South Delta toppled North Peace 3-0 to move onto the quarterfinals where they played a familiar opponent – Earl Marriott – who they beat just a week earlier to capture the South Fraser Championship.
SDSS beat them again to clinch a spot in the semifinals Saturday morning against Riverside from Coquitlam.
Riverside won that match 3-0 which pushed the Sun Devils to the bronze medal match.
Kelowna won the title beating Riverside in the final.
“Our goal was to be top five, so our win against Earl Marriott in the quarterfinals was huge,” he said. “I think we played our best volleyball on day two. Today (Saturday) was tough. It’s a double-edged sword playing in front of home crowds and playing on your home court. At the end of the day, it feels like we lost, but we came fourth. When you look at the game scores…except for a tough second set against Riverside, we lost all the sets by just a few points, so that’s a serve here or a net point there and all of a sudden you are on the right side of some of those points.”
Overall, Burgess said he is happy with the season.
“We had an incredible group of girls. We probably have a couple that will move onto post-secondary. Just the general sportsmanship and the love on this team was just extraordinary all the way from our touring trip to Hawaii right here until the end,” he said. “The tournament has been exceptional. We had a lot of people step up from our school and Seaquam as the main host was amazing.”
This year's roster included: Grayden Patroch, Madi Dahl, Izzy Burtini, Emma Turner, Maggie Gower, Alexa Turner - Malinek, Georgia Archibald, Maddie Dier, Bella Waterfall, Erin Woodhead, Bella Deshaye, Claire Thompson, Jenna McKaig, Tatum Wheeler, Jessica White, Soph Barber, Mary Neufeld and Magdalena Nemcova.
