Churchill’s heart and soul
There’s no understating the importance of Georgia Kruck to the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs senior girls volleyball team.
“She plays with a lot of heart and when she is on, the rest of us are on,” Churchill head coach Brent Mergl said. “She is the glue that holds everybody together.”
He describes her work ethic as off the charts.
“There isn’t a ball that she won’t go for or won’t get.”
What Mergl loves most about his libero is her mental approach to the game.
“She 100 per cent focused, 100 per cent of the time and she never takes a play off in practice or a game,” he said. “She is always ready to go. She’s not by far our best skilled player, but she’s by far the one who has the most heart and soul.”
The Grade 12 student competed in travel volleyball with the Niagara Rapids for four years before quitting last year to focus on academics and school volleyball. That doesn’t mean the sport isn’t important to her.
“Volleyball is a big part of my life, but I also want to focus on school work,” the 17-year-old said.
As one of the older players on the team and a team captain, Kruck knows she needs to be a leader for the Bulldogs. She is anything but a quiet leader.
“I was co-captain last year too and I am a loud person in general,” she said. “On the court, I really thrive on being loud and getting everyone pumped up and together.”
She also leads by example and will never give up on a ball.
“You miss 100 per cent of the shots that you don’t take,” she said. “If you go for 10 balls that are impossible balls, you will get one of them and nothing stops until the ball hits the floor.”
Last season, the Bulldogs came within one match of advancing to the provincial championships, losing in the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association finals.
Coming so close to a berth at the Ontario Federation of School Athletics Associations AAA championships has motivated the team this season.
“We worked hard last year and we were one game away from going to OFSAA and this year, we kicked it into high gear so that we can make it this year,” Kruck said. “We were so close and that really pushes us.”
There are a lot of familiar faces on the team.
“We didn’t lose anybody so everyone is back, plus we moved up some of the junior players to strengthen that core,” Mergl said. “We just needed a little more depth in a few key spots.”
Kruck feels the junior additions add a lot to the team.
“We had a big influx of really good players come in from Grade 9 and we couldn’t resist taking them,” she said. “They are amazing.”
It is early in the season for the Bulldogs and they are a work in progress as they competed Friday in a tournament at Eden.
“We are doing well, but we are a long ways from where we need to be. We are heading down the right road,” Mergl said.
There’s no secret to how the Bulldogs get to where they need to go.
“We play a ton of tournaments and the girls are learning to play a little bit quicker,” he said. “Right now, we are still kind of playing reactionary ball and we need to learn to read and be there before the ball is.”
The team has high goals for the season.
“It’s to get to OFSAA, play our game and not let anyone tell us how to play,” Kruck said. “If we play Bulldog volleyball, we can get there playing as a team and together as a family.”
She describes Bulldogs volleyball as working.
“We don’t let anyone give us a game,” she said. “We work for every point and that will eventually bring us to our end goal.”
