It was a sweeping victory for the Bashaw Rebels senior girls volleyball team.
The club went undefeated in winning their home tournament held Oct. 4 and 5, defeating archrival the Forestburg Falcons in the final.
It was a three-set thriller, similar to the round robin match between the two that opened the tournament. Bashaw jumped out to a 25-15 victory, but the Falcons forced a deciding set with a 25-23 second set win. The Rebels came out in attack mode in that last set to get the rather comfortable 15-6 victory.
“In earlier matches, we tended to recede into a solely defensive pattern when in a final set, but not this time,” said Rebels head coach Don Seale.
“Against Forestburg, we went out in the third and ran strong offensive attacks every chance we got. The girls now know what they are capable of, and I expect they will play with this level of confidence regardless of future challenges.”
Bashaw ran the table in the six-team straight round robin format to reach the final, with Forestburg winding up second.
The Rebels opened up with a three set win over the Falcon (25-16, 23-25, 15-7) then needed to win a very tight third set to beat Hay Lakes (25-17, 25-27, 15-12) before beating Consort in straight sets (25-17, 25-15) on the Friday.
Bashaw finished off the round robin Saturday with a straight sets victories over Oyen (25-17, 25-14) and David Thompson from Condor (25-23, 25-9).
Rebels assistant coach Matthew Blouin stated, We’ve started to include combination plays in our game, which are tough for opposing Middles to defend. This was especially true in our match against Consort, where we ran a variety of tandem attacks.”
The team has had to negotiate through some injuries early on in the season, but manager Amanda Swedberg stated the club’s bench strength helped get them through.
“We finally had our full compliment of healthy players (at the tournament) and that made the difference,” she said.
Consort would wind up third after defeating Hay Lakes in the bronze medal match.
The team will continue Central 1A league action Oct. 22 at home to Daysland (6 p.m.) before they head to Forestburg for a 12-team tournament Oct. 26 and 27. Bashaw faced Forestburg in league play Oct. 15, but the results were unavailable at press time.