Jonas Emilsson
www.krammag.com

The William Aberhart Trojans swepped aside the E.P. Scarlett Lancers 3-0 (25-22, 25-12, 27-25) to capture the Senior Girls’ Div I championship.

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Not only did they sweep the championship final, the win also secured a sweep of the regular season and playoffs, where they ended up finishing with a sterling 13-0 record.

“I thought we came out really strong,” said Trojans’ outside hitter Carly Hamilton. “It was fun, we knew what to expect because we’ve played Scarlett in league. We prepared properly and we knew we could beat them and we played hard.”

But as far as the Trojans are concerned, there’s still plenty of more work to do.

Sure, they’ll take a moment and enjoy their accomplishments, but come Monday, they’ll have forgotten about Saturday night’s victory and start to prepare for defending their title as provincial champs.

“This is it, the cities are done and now the tournament starts on Thursday for them and the girls have always had it in their heads that they’re going to have a solid effort in the Provincials and I don’t think this is where they want to end their season with right here,” said Trojans’ head coach Kelly Lloyd.

The Trojans used their size advantage and some strong serving to put pressure on the Lancers right from the get go.

Hamilton and middle hitter Ella Valge-Saar combined for the majority of the kills for the Trojans.

The final box score may show a 3-0 victory for the Trojans, but the score doesn’t do the effort put forth by the Lancers justice, particularly in the opening and final set.

“The first and last game were close, they came out hard but we came out harder,” said Hamilton.

With the score tied at 12-12 in the opening game the Trojans went on a three point run to give themselves some breathing room. The Lancers rallied to get within a point, but the Trojans again went on the offensive to eventually close out the game on a kill by setter Kyjsa Brkich.

The second game was a dominate effort by the Trojans.

They effectively used their size advantage to control the play at the net, and seemed to score points at will thanks to terrific passing by their defenders to set up accurate setting by their 6′1″ setter Jordhynn Guy.

But the Lancers quickly rebounded in the third game and seemed destined to extend the match to four games when they had the Trojans on the ropes with three game points on two separate occasions; once leading 24-22 and again leading 25-24.

But with the championship banner ever so close the Trojans rallied with three straight points to close out the match, securing the city championship that eluded them last year when they lost to the Western Canada Redmen in the final.

“We felt like we had control, but we always knew that at any point Scarlett was ready to go on a run, and that’s what happened in the third game,” said Lloyd.