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Mallaig Stingers bring home provincial gold and silver

For the Mallaig Stingers boys’ volleyball team, the year started with a singular focus – they were in it to storm their way through provincials to the top spot.
The Mallaig boys team captured gold at 1A volleyball provincials, this past weekend. Pictured is the team and coaches.
The Mallaig boys team captured gold at 1A volleyball provincials, this past weekend. Pictured is the team and coaches.

For the Mallaig Stingers boys’ volleyball team, the year started with a singular focus – they were in it to storm their way through provincials to the top spot.

“This year, ever since the start of the first practice, our goal was to win – not just get there, and whatever happens, happens,” recalled Grade 12 student Tyler Jodoin.

While the boys had regularly made appearances at provincials, it had been years since they had won the provincial banner. They came in fourth last year, but as they had retained all their players from last year to this year, they knew their chances at the banner would be good.

Tyler asked his father to get on board coaching the team.

“Dad, it’s my final year, you got to coach, you got to coach,” Denis Jodoin recalled his son said to him. With Jodoin and teacher Claude Cote joining aboard as coaches, they spoke about the goal to get to provincials in their first practice.

“That guided us through the whole year, because we knew we had a very strong team,” said Jodoin.

After winning the zones banner, the team headed to Bow Island for provincials last week, and played “phenomenal,” according to Jodoin, winning every game, even against an extremely competitive pool that would end up comprising the top three medalists. Their play saw them head to the finals, where they would take on the host team Senator Gershaw, whom the Stingers had defeated earlier in the pool stages in a tight three sets.

The volume in the gym ratcheted up through the games; although Senator Gershaw was the host team, Mallaig’s faithful fan base had followed the boys and girls teams south, and the gym was evenly comprised of both sets of fans.

Senator Gershaw won the first set, and the crowd was roaring, recalled Jodoin.

“It was pretty loud in there but I was pretty proud of my boys. Never did we get the sense they had given up,” he said.

In the second set, the boys came out strong, he said, adding they came ahead, and kept the lead to win. They would extend the lead again in the tie breaking third set, but Senator Gershaw was not ready to say die, catching up to make it close at 14 – 13, then calling a time-out to rally for the win. However, setter Brett Seguin – whom Jodoin noted played very well all weekend - would set it up for Tyler to lay down the spike that would seal the boys’ provincial victory.

“It was awesome. The crowd was crazy. Tears for sure, for some of us,” said Tyler. “It feels awesome. It’s really awesome.”

“It was a total team effort - You’ve got a whole group of kids that put this together,” said Jodoin, adding that it was a special group of boys that won the banner as a team.

He noted it was “emotional” to finish his son’s graduating year as the coach of the banner-winning team.

“To be honest, no one could stop him all weekend. It was kind of fitting that he finished it off for us,” he said, adding it was also special to be able to see his daughter’s Mallaig team play and ultimately win silver in provincials as well.

The Mallaig girls also had their eye on winning at provincials, having finished second in the competition last year. Like the boys, their squad stayed largely intact, and the group felt they could match or better their showing at this year’s outing at provincials, after capturing the zones banner earlier this month.

The girls got off to a rockier start than the boys, coming third in their pool, but then, “we just started to play a whole lot better,” said team captain Brooke Corbiere, adding, “I think we played – especially Saturday – our best ball all season. That’s something we’re proud of.”

The girls won their quarterfinal game, sending them to the semis against Bawlf, against whom the girls had lost in two straights sets earlier in the round robin. But this time, the girls found the winning edge, winning in two straight, tight sets, sending them to the finals against the Provost Panthers.

“We definitely wanted that gold,” Brooke said, noting of their eventual loss in the finals - “We still played good, I guess they just came out and played better.”

In the final against the Panthers, the girls won the first set, and went up 22 – 19 in the second, but let the lead slip away and the Panthers took the win. In the tie-breaking set, the Stingers went down 8 – 0, and things were looking like they might go the way of a rout, but the team re-grouped.

“We managed to crawl our way back and make a game out of it. At least we didn’t give up,” said Brooke.

While the team rallied, the Panthers used the strength of their power hitter to hold on the lead and win, 15 – 11.

It was, Brooke acknowledged, a bit of a heartbreak for the girls, saying, “it was pretty tough to swallow, especially the second year. (But) second in provincials, you can’t be disappointed.”

And with that, Brooke said she has come to the end of her volleyball career, one that she considered fantastic, ending with the silver and second position in the province for the second year in a row.

“It was great – I loved every minute of it – my team, my coaches, the Mallaig community there for us – everything about it.”

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