LANGLEY- By Derek Shuel
The stands were packed full of green, black, blue and gold! What a great atmosphere to finish up a successful BC Boys Provincial Championship!
AA MOP Tyson Ardell in the final. (Vancouver Sports Pictures)
The first set was a classic chess match between two grizzly veteran teams who have found themselves in many a gold medal match from the past. Tonight, in some early key highlights – LCS runs a successful yet difficult slide-overload with middle, Jordan Dickhof (#13), while MEI sticks with solid consistent serving and it’s quick paced offense through their second-team All-Star setter Micah Bucknam. Langley counters with all-star Nic Triemstra establishing himself this set as a force to be reckoned with. As the smoke settled, MEI wins the opening thriller 27-25.
In the second, the chess match continues well into the game having the set tied at 10-10. MEI continues it’s fast paced offense and finds some nice seams in the middle with Trey Smith (#15) and Levi Kropp (#5 ). Having some middle connection helps the Eagles pull away to a score of 19-13. At 24-16, LCS’ all-star left side Jonas Van Huizen (#8) rattles off a number of crowd pleasing spin serves to make it interesting, but MEI takes the set 25-19. Off to the third we go.
LCS’s Van Huizen hitting hard around the MEI block. (Vancouver Sports Pictures)
With two tape aces on the day for the Eagles’ middle Levi Kropp, MEI soared to an 8-3 start. But, the Lightning didn’t quit fighting as they battled back to 12-14. As we have heard many times in the past, these championships are so very difficult to win. Similar to that of the second set, late in the third set LCS’s Van Huizen spin serves some amazing tough serves and this time helps bring his team back to a tie game 23-23! The crowd is loud and the game is tied! With a few back and forth plays and one very important touch call off of MEI’s Tyson Ardell’s hit, MEI stuns everyone in the gym and quickly wins the Provincial Championship 25-23 and a direct 3-0 win.
At the completion of the game, Coach Olfert of the Eagles stated,
“the way we were able to close it out was very special. I’m really proud of them”.
He continued with,
“how proud I am with how the boys responded through adversity and how they supported each other over the past 4 days. It wasn’t any one player, it was a complete team effort.”
1st team All star Hunter Arul-pragasm making a great save in the AA final. (Vancouver Sports Pictures)
The 2019 edition of the BC Boys Volleyball Championship saw the MEI Eagles capture their AA boys division leading 11th gold medal while the Lightning has 3 gold, 3 silver and four bronze in the past 13 seasons. Needless to say, it was a battle for the ages and the capacity crowd at the LEC was not disappointed. GO EAGLES!
That first moment when they realize they have done it- MEI wins AA Gold.
MEI EAGLES 2019 AA GOLD (Vancouver Sports Pictures)
