By Bruce Burton
The Haldimand Press
CALEDONIA—The McKinnon Park Junior girls began their season losing the first match in three straight games to North Park of Brantford in November, but they’ve since turned golden.
Following their opening loss they won three straight against Paris, and their next three matchups saw 3-1 victories over Brantford Collegiate and Pauline Johnson before a tough three-game victory over Assumption. The group entered the Paris Junior tournament on December 16 with a “AA” team that faced perennial “AAA” powerhouse Bishop Ryan from Hamilton in the finals, eventually losing a close battle. A few days later, they fought North Park to a fifth game before taking the win.
The new year opened with a close three-game sweep against Paris, before two five-game victories over St. John and Pauline Johnson, another team that had improved. The PJ match taught them another type of toughness as this also took five matches to finish.
It was the match on January 19 against Assumption, however, that provided the watershed moment of their season. With McKinnon taking the first game, the West Brantford team won the second. But that was the last game that McKinnon was to lose in the regular season. Finishing the regular season on January 23 with a three-game victory over St. John’s, they received a bye for finishing in first place.
It then seemed coaches Jason Pudwell and John Gerritsen had built the team expressly for the playoffs. Following the same three-game result against St. John’s in the semi-finals, they advanced to the AABHN Championship game against North Park – their nemesis all season. The games couldn’t have been much closer as McKinnon took the AABHN District 5 title. They won 11 straight to win the District 5 title.
They travelled to St. David Catholic School on February 24 for the CWOSSA Championships, being put into the A pool for a round-robin against District 1/7 Champions St. Mary’s, District 8 Champions St. David, and District 9 Champions Holy Trinity. They made relatively short work of the first two before coming up against a tough squad from Norfolk’s Holy Trinity, having to go three games for the win 25-12, 23-25, 15-6.
Meeting District 10 Champions St. James in one of the semi-finals, the lessons learned earlier in the season stood them in good stead. Losing the first game, they fought back to win the second tilt 25-12 before closing it out with a third game 15-10 victory.
For the championship, a small bit of luck went McKinnon’s way as the match was set for best-of-five. McKinnon won the first game against District 6/11 Champions Glenview, but the Cambridge team won the second and third. Had it been best-of-three, like the previous rounds, the match would have been over. McKinnon was not yet done, and came back for a game-four win 25-11. The fifth and deciding game was a back-and-forth tussle, before McKinnon broke it open and took the crown with a final score of 15-11.
There is no OFSAA Championship for Junior volleyball, so their season has ended on a high note. Next year we’ll see if this year’s success translates to a similar record in the Senior division.
