Bulldogs unbeaten at OFSAA
The Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs senior boys volleyball team got off to a perfect start Thursday at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations AA championships in St. Catharines.
Churchill, ranked 10th, opened play with a 2-1 victory (24-26, 25-20 and 17-15) against seventh-seeded Aurora and then followed it up with a 2-0 (25-17 and 25-20) triumph against 17th-seeded Timiskaming District.
“To come away with two wins was super important and it puts us in a good place for tomorrow,” Churchill head coach Garrett Goodbrand said. “We learned a lot today. I think we had moments of brilliance and hopefully we can build on that tomorrow and in the rest of the tournament.”
The message to his team tonight heading into tomorrow’s final two pool games is straight forward.
“We are going to have to keep our energy up if we are going to play against the best teams in the province. We have got to have great energy from point one to point 25.”
A key point for the Bulldogs in Thursday’s opening action was their ability to fight back against Aurora.
“We were down 1-0 and to come away with a 2-1 win was really important,” Goodbrand said.
Among many Bulldogs playing well for Churchill Thursday was Jaden Hoff.
“Jaden is a Grade 10 student who has been playing with us all year,” he said. “He has taken on a big, big role with our team and he plays older than his age and he shows his maturity a lot,” Goodbrand said.
The 6-foot-5 Niagara Rapids travel player accompanied the senior team to OFSAA when he was in Grade 9 and even though he didn’t see any action, the experience was invaluable.
“It’s pretty cool to play at OFSAA. I got a lot of experience last year. I was on the bench and I learned a lot there,” he said. “It really helped me because it is kind of stressful playing at OFSAA. It helped me figure out how it is there.”
He noticed a difference when he began play Thursday afternoon.
Hoff was happy with how his team performed Thursday.
“Whenever we made a lot of mistakes and other teams had runs and stuff like that, we stayed as a team and never crumbled.”
The team needs to do more of the same Friday if it hopes to advance to the championship quarter-finals.
“We have to keep going because we are going to have a tough game in the morning,” Hoff said.
The 10th-seeded Bulldogs play fourth-seeded Montcalm at 10 am. Friday at St. Catharines Collegiate and 13th-seeded Lo-Ellen Park at 1 p.m. at Laura Secord.
Consolation quarter-finals will start at 4:30 p.m. Friday and the championship quarter-finals will start at 6 p.m. Games are being played at Governor Simcoe, Laura Secord, Sir Winston Churchill and St. Catharines Collegiate.
Consolation semifinals will be played Saturday at 9 a.m. and the championship semifinals will start at 11. Games will be played at Governor Simcoe and Sir Winston Churchill.
Both medal matches and the consolation final will be contested at Churchill. The finals are scheduled to start at 1 (consolation), 3 (bronze) and 5 p.m. (gold).
