By Taylor Allen
There’s a new powerhouse in Manitoba high school girls’ volleyball and it’s the Collège Jeanne-Sauvé Olympiens.
The No.1-ranked Olympiens won their first varsity girls’ provincial title in school history on Monday night, defeating the No.3-ranked Portage Collegiate Saints in four sets (26-24, 25-16, 19-25-25-14).
“It feels great,” said CJS head coach Ben Albrecht on winning the provincials. “I think we’re all physically and emotionally exhausted but this is the way you definitely want to finish the season.”
It may have been the first varsity girl’s title for the school, but this team is no stranger to winning provincial banners.
Five out of the six players in the starting lineup are in Grade 11 and won back-to-back junior varsity provincial championships before this season.
Albrecht said it’s a special group of young players.
“They compete so hard. They push each other and they strive for excellence all the time and that’s not just in big games, they’ve been doing that all year,” said Albrecht. “They don’t like to lose in practice and they don’t like to not play well in practice. They just work really hard all the time.”
Leading the group of Grade 11s for the Olympiens is left-side hitter Julia Arnold and setter Katreena Bentley. Arnold was named Player of the Game in the final and Bentley was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. The young duo led the team to a 41-3 record in the regular season.
“We’re just really good at playing as a group,” said Arnold. “We’ve got some really good talent, obviously. Four of us played together on the same club team, but we’ve had great coaching through all of our years and it’s just … it’s great.”
The first set didn’t go as planned for the Olympiens, as they found themselves down 5-2 after committing five errors. CJS was able to recover to win the opening set in thrilling fashion, 26-24.
“We were pretty nervous but we found a way to get through it and that was good,” said Arnold, who was the No.8-ranked player in the Winnipeg Sun’s annual girls high school volleyball Top 10 coaches poll.
With the core of the team returning next season, it won’t be a surprise to anyone to see the Olympiens defend their title, but Albrecht isn’t thinking about that right now.
“We’ll have a lot of returning players, which obviously is a great fit for our school and program but we’re going to savour this one right now before we get too far ahead,” he said.
Girls all-stars
Maren Garcia — Mennonite Brethren
Olivia Weremy — Lord Selkirk
Shayne Nichols — Portage Collegiate
Justice Bryson — Portage Collegiate
Erika Vermette — Collège Jeanne-Sauvé
Julia Arnold — Collège Jeanne-Sauvé
Tournament MVP
Katreena Bentley — Collège Jeanne-Sauvé
Players’ Choice Award
Jayda Nault — Westwood