The Niverville Panthers had a highly successful volleyball season this past fall. Both the girls and boys junior varsity teams secured their zone championships, earning for them the right to compete at the provincial level.

JV AAA Volleyball Boys

This year’s coaches included Austin Anderson, and Joshua Limpright. The two led the boys through a challenging season.

They started off with a combination of both new-to-the-sport and experienced players. The result? They were able to build a team with an aggressive offence paired with determined defence.

Anderson observes that their major strengths came from the serving line as well as in passing, allowing the team to play “in system.”

“Our team struggled a bit at the beginning of the season with some injuries, and some guys gone lots that played soccer,” says Anderson.

Despite a few challenges, he says they played strongly against one of their main rivals early in the season.

“We had a team in our zone that beat us in zones last year, Steinbach Christian [School],” says Anderson. “And we knew that was the team we had to get through this year to get to provincials. We played against them for the first time in October, winning in a thrilling third set. Very close game. And they were our focus between then and the zone finals on November 14. Leading up to this game, I was super proud of the guys in how they executed our team’s game plan and just played very well against them, winning 2–0 in the finals.”

Having clinched a spot in provincials, the Panthers set their sights on another team they knew would provide stiff competition: Westgate Mennonite Collegiate. They’d lost to Westgate earlier in the season and player Antonio DaPalma says they were determined to flip the result in the rematch.

“We all knew we could beat them, which is exactly what we did at provincials,” says DaPalma.

It wasn’t enough to bring home the provincial banner, however. The team went 4–0 to start in the round robin only to run into Winkler’s Garden Valley Collegiate in the playoffs. Winkler ended up placing first.

“We made it to the quarterfinals in provincials, which wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but not something to complain about at all,” says DaPalma. “Me and the rest of the guys on the court gave it our all and played amazing, while the guys on the bench were so unbelievably supportive and made such an impact on our game.”

DaPalma credits his coaches for never doubting the team.

“They have taught us so much about the game and encouraged us constantly. So a big thank you to them for their contributions.”

DaPalma continues to be passionate about young people’s involvement in sports and hopes to spread a message of encouragement to anyone thinking about playing sports in high school.

“Do it. Junior varsity sports are such a great starting place to get you interested and further in sports, and they’re a crucial part of your experience,” says DaPalma. “I’ve had some of my greatest memories from playing JV sports. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere, so why not start with your high school JV sports?”

JV AAA Volleyball Girls

Taran Peters, head coach of the junior varsity girls team, was pleased to lead the squad alongside assistant coaches Rhea Peters and Anika Buys.

Peters says their year started off unusually, with them needing to fill a few gaps left behind after two players were brought up to play at the varsity level instead.

“At tryouts, it was determined that the varsity girls team had a small team and so the JV team gave up two players to join that team for the entire season,” says Peters. “This meant we gave up two very strong players for the year. However, that meant we were able to take two other girls on to our team who we wouldn’t have otherwise and develop more players for future teams.”

The league was highly competitive this year, and the zone playoffs proved the perfect opportunity for the Panthers to test themselves.

“In our Zone 13 South playoffs, we played Lorette and [Steinbach Christian] played Ste Anne,” reports Peters. “Our team played very well in the game against Lorette, winning two straight sets, 25–17 and 25–14. Then we played Steinbach Christian in the Zone 13 south final.”

The Panthers won the first set 25–17, dropped the second 20–25, only to rebound with a 15–10 win in the third.

Following that, the Panthers emerged victorious from the north-south crossover game to win the banner after a best-of-five set against Beausejour. They won in three straight sets.

The girls then headed to provincials, held at Linden Christian School. The team knew competition would be fierce, entering the tournament ranked ninth.

“The competition was tough. We played really well in the round robin and took each game to three sets,” says Peters. “However, we only came out with a win in one of the three games.”

In the first playoff game, the team struggled and unfortunately lost in straight sets.

Despite the loss, Peters notes that it was a coaching highlight to see so many players develop this year. A few of the girls had only played middle school volleyball.

“It is a lot of fun to coach at this level because the progress you see in many of the players from September to the end of November is a night and day difference,” he says. “At the start of the season, we had several players who struggled to get their serves in. By the end of the season, they were consistently delivering their serves.”

He adds that a number of less experienced players learned quickly, adjusting from never having played a positionally structured system before to knowing exactly where they needed to be on the court within a week or two.

“We had players who at the beginning of the year didn’t have the proper footwork to approach to hit a ball, and they were killing it by the end of the season,” he says. “Seeing that progress, that is always the highlight for us as coaches. Our main goal as coaches is development.”