Golden Eagles advance to SOSSA
There is no substitute for size.
At 6-foot-2, Mia Nicholson towers over most of her opponents, a weapon she uses to her advantage on the volleyball court.
Nicholson was front and centre Friday as she led the Thorold Golden Eagles over the Denis Morris Reds 25-10, 25-12, 23-25, 25-14 in a Zone 4 senior girls volleyball challenge game.
The Eagles now advance to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association AAA playdowns Monday at Sir Winston Churchill.
“She’s a presence at the net,” Thorold head coach Andrew Robertson said of Nicholson. “It’s intimidating being on the other side of the net trying to attack that. He arms are going to be there every time. I’m sure it’s hard for the other team.”
Nicholson plays travel for the Niagara Rapids U18 team.
“It (size) helps our defence as well in the back and helps the other girls as well,” she said. “I get up there and they have to get up there too. It helps us all together to be better at the net.”
Nicholson went to SOSSA in Grade 10 with the Golden Eagles and can’t wait to get another shot Monday.
“It gets us hyped and really excites us,” Nicholson said. “We’re so wild. We really get crazy. We’re like a different team.”
Robertson gave his charges high marks for a solid effort Friday.
“They played really well,” he said.” I saw DM before. I was expecting them to put up a better fight. Our girls came out and didn’t pull any punches. We went hard at them right away. We got a big lead and were able to keep it. Usually in volleyball, there’s a lot of swings but they didn’t let that happen.”
Robertson, who is assisted by Jennifer Barker, has been pleased with the Golden Eagles season to date.
“The weather hasn’t helped us. The last little while we haven’t played at all but we’ve had good results in the tournaments we’ve been in. We’ve been in the semifinals or finals of most of them. It’s been a good year.”
The Golden Eagles were able to challenge the Reds for the second spot at SOSSA after DM lost to Sir Winston in the Zone 4 finals earlier in the week. The host zone is permitted two entries this year because Zone 2 doesn’t have a AAA school.
“We know we’re as good as most any team out there and can stay with teams from bigger schools,” Robertson said. “We just have to play our team game and see how we do as SOSSA.
“We know we can improve and if we play like we did today, we have a really good shot.”
Other members of the team are: Kennedy Apold, Abbey Churchill, Eryn Evans, Caitlin Gibson, Brooklyn Gifford, Madison McCallum, Brooke Sittler, Abigale VanVolkenburg, Alexa Villeneuve, Brianne Villeneuve and Elisa Weir.
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