There were two big prizes up for grabs for the Capilano Blues women’s volleyball team as they hosted the PacWest provincial championships last weekend. In this instance, one out of two ain’t bad. In fact, it’s pretty darn good.
The Blues battled all the way to the championship final before finally falling to the No. 1-ranked team in Canada, the Vancouver Island University Mariners. The loss left the Blues without the gold, but the silver lining was that Capilano qualified for the CCAA national championships just by making the final. The PacWest league was allotted two spots in the big show and so both VIU and Cap U will make the trip to Toronto’s Seneca College for the March 6-8 national championships.
“It feels awesome, I’m very proud,” said head coach Cal Wohlford of earning a ticket to nationals. Wohlford is in his second year as the Blues boss after taking over for longtime coach Wayne Desjardins. “Wayne has built this (program) up and for 13 years he worked hard and it feels good to come in here and continue the tradition that he started.”
The Blues looked like they might win it all in the final held Saturday night at the Capilano Sportsplex, battling the Mariners to a standstill in the opening set. VIU took a 24-23 lead in the opener but the Blues tied it up on a monster kill for third-year power hitter Sara Pettersson. That high, however, immediately turned into a low as Pettersson, one of the team’s captains, landed awkwardly at the base of the umpire stand and stayed down, clutching at her knee. Pettersson left in a wheelchair and, it would seem, the team’s spirit left with her. The Mariners scored three of the next four points to win the set 27-25 and from then on it was all VIU as they used their balanced attack to blast away a 3-0 win, 27-25, 25-17, 25-16.
The loss of one of their team leaders at such a crucial moment shook up the Blues, said Capilano libero Jacqueline Caverly.
“It hit our team pretty hard. We just couldn’t recover as well as we’d like to the rest of the match.”
Pettersson, a native of Sweden who was finishing up her second year with Capilano, was later diagnosed with a torn ACL and will miss the national championships. Losing her did more than just take away one of their best players, said Wohlford.
“Sara is one of our mature athletes and holds the confidence of the team a little bit,” he said. “She’s one of those players who stares at teammates’ eyes. Even when she makes mistakes she doesn’t get down, she’s just like ‘OK, c’mon, give me the ball.’ When you lose that, some players have a tendency to say, ‘who’s going to do that now.’ And some of our older players should have stepped up a bit more but I think they were a little shell-shocked.”
Wohlford, however, was quick to add that VIU was a very deserving champion.
“VIU is super strong. It was going to be a battle, there’s no doubt. I don’t feel like we missed an opportunity to win a gold medal, I think we just missed an opportunity to fight for one.”
VIU middle Tylar Turnbull was nearly unstoppable on attack, slamming down seven kills without committing a single hitting error on her way to earning Player of the Match and tournament MVP honours. VIU setter Ashley Cousens and power hitter Megan Groenendijk were named tournament all-stars. The Mariners also had a North Shore connection on the floor in Sutherland grad Leanna Gildersleeve, a fifth-year power hitter who was recently named the PacWest player of the year. She’s a player that Capilano’s coach knows very well from the time both spent with the North Shore’s BCO Volleyball Club.
“I used to coach her — she’s like a second daughter to me,” he said, chuckling and nodding when asked if it would have been nice to have her on his side of the net in the final. “She’s an awesome person, awesome player. She’s going hard. She’s a competitor all the time.”
As for the Blues, the loss in the final stung but, aside from that, they’ve been playing their best volleyball of the season over the past few weeks, said Wohlford. They started the PacWest championship with a 3-0 sweep of sixth-seeded Douglas College in the quarterfinals and then faced a semifinal matchup against the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades, seeded second in the tournament and ranked No. 4 in Canada.
With a berth in the national championships on the line the Blues came out swinging, winning the first set 25-19. The Cascades, defending provincial and national champions, fought back the rest of the way but Capilano always managed to come through at crucial moments and came away with another 3-0 sweep, 25-19, 25-23, 25-23.
“Huge win for us,” said Wohlford. “We came out with our A-game. We were very disciplined, we ran what we wanted to run, we stopped them when they went on little runs. We came up with big digs and big plays. It was a great match.”
Power hitter Kelsi Boroevich led the way with 13 kills against only two hitting errors. She was later named to the tournament all-star team along with Caverly.
Caverly was also recently named a PacWest first-team all-star for her play during the regular season. Following the final she reflected on playing her last match on the Capilano court.
“It’s a little sad. We would have liked to have had a gold medal, but you can’t win a gold medal every day.”
“(Caverly) gave it her all for sure,” added Wohlford. “This is her first nationals. We’re pretty excited that she’s got the opportunity to go.”
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On the men’s side the third-seeded Douglas College Royals defeated the No. 1 Columbia Bible College Bearcats 3-1 to take the PacWest title. The Blues men lost 3-1 to College of the Rockies in the quarterfinals.
Capilano’s Dan Caverly, Jacqueline’s twin brother, was named to the PacWest first all-star team for his strong season while libero Elion Wong was named to the PacWest all-rookie team.
