NEWS

17U Boys

By: Matthew Daye

A 3:00 AM wake up call is not what you want to have to go through on a Saturday morning. Unless, of course, you plan
on winning a big tournament. We got up, got ready and were out by 4:00 AM, making the 3 hour drive to Cobourg. On
our minds was the big win, even though we were short 3 middles.

When we got there, all that was on our minds was the tournament. After getting our tracksuits, ROOS white went about
warming up for our first game against Durham Attack Red. We learned that Aaron was sick and couldn't make it, so
Dan went back to his old days in Aurora and stepped in to play middle. Definitely a great start for us, we took the first
set with some amazing hits from Earnest, Dan, Caio, Kevin and Syd, and some terrific sets by Wesley.

The second set was good, but not great as Durham came forward and crept past us at 26-24. Durham then went on to
win the whole game in the third set.

We felt bad, but knew we had to come back and cheer on the ROOS black, who were against Pakmen. During the game
I personally thought about our game against Pakmen coming up, and tried to prepare myself.

Our second game was against Pakmen. I was a little apprehensive walking on to the court, because I had seen the
game before. Definitely some big hitters on that team. We fought hard but failed to take the first set away from them.
Earnest really proved himself in the second set, where he was leading our team to a set victory. Some fantastic serves,
hits and blocks by him definitely helped bring our confidence up. Especially Caio's big block against Williams.
Definitely huge. ROOS White took the second set, and we were gearing up for the third. Unfortunately for us, Pakmen
brought out their front line and came back to win the game.

Feeling even worse now that we lost few games, Bruce called a meeting. After the meeting, we were prepping up for
our match against our own teamates: ROOS Black. I'll keep it short, great passing by Mark, who was libero for the
game, and some awesome hitting by Caio and Dan. We won.

3rd in our pool, we played Toronto West. A favourite to be in the top 4. We were confident coming into the game
that we could beat them, and we proved we could after taking a first set from them. They came back in the second set,
with the help of their best hitter. The ROOS once again came back with an upsetting win over T-West in the third set.

ROOS went up to the semis to once again face the first place team: Pakmen. We felt awesome, the lowest we could
possibly place was 4th. A great accomplishment. Mark once again did a fantastic job as libero. Unfortunately for us,
Pakmen took us in straight sets. Wesley made a lot of awesome sets, and our hitters did an excellent job.

Our last game of the day was once again against our own teamates. To be honest, team White didn't try and Black
took us in straight sets, winning the bronze medal. Even though they won, White had a great reward in itself as told by
Coach Bruce Dunning:

"Not all rewards are external: The rewards that mean the most are internal."*

*Possibly not exact words shown
Great job guys!


For photos visit the following link.

 

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