St. Patrick’s lost the B.C. Catholics senior girls volleyball championship a year ago, so when the Celtics returned to the final this year in a rematch against Immaculata, they wanted to pull it off for the graduates no longer on the team.
They did. St. Pat’s defeated Immaculata from Kelowna in three sets, winning the third set 15-11 at Notre Dame secondary on Oct. 24 to claim the 2014 title.
“They really stepped it up,” said Celtics head coach Adele Renzullo. “When they play, they’re just so alive.”
The Celtics have been on a steady upward climb since dropping their first three league games in September and, following a few key adjustments on both defence and offence, they’ve climbed back to .500 with a 5-5 record in the private school league. They have won four consecutive league games and moved up to seventh from ninth in the AA B.C. Volleyball rankings. The Celtics want to compete at the Lower Mainland AA championships and return to provincials.
“My goal is to keep improving every time we play,” said Renzullo.
At the annual tournament, which pits 10 B.C. Catholic schools against each other for senior girls volleyball, St. Pat’s lost to Immaculata in the group stage but advanced to eliminate St. Aquinas in the quarterfinal and host Notre Dame in the semifinal, beating both teams in two sets.
“We adjusted well to the teams we were playing. We beat Notre Dame in league last week, which was a booster for the players because we lost to them the first time,” said Renzullo.
Against Immaculata, a towering team averaging about six feet, according to Renzullo, St. Pat’s continued to hit its stride. The Celtics are a consistently small team, drawing players slightly taller than average height — which isn’t typical of the extremely tall athletes found in volleyball.
And in the rematch of 2013, said the coach, “This year were even tinier.”
“They wanted to make a statement. They said, let’s get it done for the grads of last year,” said Renzullo. “They stuck to the game plan, basically. They put the ball where it needed to be. It was fun to watch — the fans were going crazy.”
Celtics captain and power hitter Madison Reyes was named the tournament MVP.Â
