The road to the South Island senior boys volleyball championship will likely run through perennial favourites, the Oak Bay Barbers again, but it took a scenic opening detour through Royal Bay Secondary as league play began on several fronts on Wednesday.
The Royal Bay Ravens 鈥� in their purple, black and silver school colours 鈥� played host to the Claremont Spartans, Mount Douglas Rams and Stelly鈥檚 Stingers on the new gleaming wood floors at the school, located off Ryder Hesjedal Way in Colwood.
Oak Bay played host to Belmont, Pacific Christian School and Reynolds and Lambrick Park and Spectrum travelled to Parkland in other play.
It was the opening of six weeks of league action before power pools set up playoffs for Nov. 4.
鈥淲e鈥檙e expecting to have a great season, honestly. We鈥檙e really lucky we have a strong program coming up from Dunsmuir that鈥檚 feeding into the school, so a lot of the players have been playing together,鈥� said Ravens head coach Kris Johnson, who is assisted by Jaden Mandy and Mark Severinsen, Belmont grads.
Both Royal Bay and the new Belmont Secondary will have their own volleyball programs.
鈥淚t鈥檚 awesome to have two new high schools and have each put out a senior boy鈥檚 volleyball team because boys鈥� volleyball had been on the decline, but now it鈥檚 on the rise,鈥� said Johnson.
The Ravens are situated in double-A along with Lambrick Park, PCS, Parkland and Stelly鈥檚. Oak Bay, Belmont, Claremont, Mount Douglas, Reynolds and Spectrum compete in triple-A. All will face one another in an unbalanced city schedule before breaking off into playoffs for the Bob Harrison and Judy Bourne Cups Nov. 9 and 13.
Oak Bay is once again the power.
鈥淲e鈥檒l be strong again, probably a top-four team in the province, somewhere in that grouping,鈥� said Al Carmichael, head coach at Oak Bay.
The Barbers will be led by six-foot-five player Nick Mickelberry and Cole Beevor-Potss 鈥� both with Team sa国际传媒 experience 鈥� Piper Illman and Madhu McConnell, a third-year player moving to the right side.
Reynolds and Claremont are expected to push.
Five teams from the South and one from the North will qualify for triple-A Islands this year as declining enrolment over the last two years has moved Ballenas (Parksville), Brooks (Powell River), Carihi (Campbell River), and Stelly鈥檚 down to double-A.
The Ravens are the newcomers to double-A and PCS returns to competition after a one-year hiatus.
Lambrick Park should be a strength in double-A, said Carmichael, as the team features solid Grade 11 players and will have Grade 9 phenom Luke deGreeff, the MVP at U-14 club provincials last year.
There will be five teams vying for the four berths to the double-A Islands, which are set for Royal Bay, Nov. 20-21. The triple-A Islands are slated for Oak Bay at the same time. Duncan Christian will play host to single-A provincials on Nov. 10.
鈥淚t will be an excellent opportunity to showcase this gym and the Western Communities,鈥� said Johnson.
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