NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY Medicine Hat's Amber Stigter goes up for a block in a Jan. 10 game against Olds. Stigter and the Rattlers play Augustana to open the conference championships tonight, 6 p.m. at the Snake Pit.
The fifth-years don’t want to think about it, but they know this is their last chance at a conference championship.
The favourites don’t want to hear about it, but they’re favoured for a reason.
And as the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference women’s volleyball finals start today in the Snake Pit at Medicine Hat College, there’s more than one cautionary tale floating around about how underdogs can pull off huge surprises.
The championships began Wednesday night with an awards banquet, highlighted by setter Ashley Erickson of Briercrest being named the league MVP.
Today, four quarter-final matches take place, including the host Rattlers facing Augustana, the 20-4 top seed from the North Division, at 6 p.m.
“It’s a great group of young ladies that just want to play for each other,” said Rattlers coach Kim Stonehouse. “It’s the 40th anniversary of the miracle on ice… maybe we can be the miracle on the court.”
Stonehouse’s crew lost its final 10 regular season games and at 8-16 did not do what it hoped coming in to the season. Between a nasty flu bug and injuries, the best news for Medicine Hat is that everyone’s now healthy at the right time.
“We’re going in strong, we still need to push hard,” said Amber Stigter, the fifth-year outside hitter and Medicine Hat’s all-time career kills leader. “We’ve had a good week of practice going into it. We’re ready to push, lay it all out.”
Stigter and libero Shaya Suchy – now the all-time career digs leader for the ACAC and named a conference-all-star Wednesday – are staring down the possibility of this weekend being the end of the road for their storied careers. They’re far from the only ones, of course, and the prevailing wisdom seems to be not to think about it too much.
“This has been a great experience for me and I don’t really want it to end,” Rae Metrunec, Augustana’s fifth-year right side. “Even on our senior night I was like ‘no, we’ve still got games, volleyball’s still happening.’ Once it is over I’m sure I’ll feel differently.”
The underdogs are hard to miss, with the host team and the 9-15 NAIT Ooks the only two with sub-.500 records. Ooks’ Benj Heinrichs will coach his first game in the Snake Pit since leaving as Rattlers bench boss way back in 2013, which incidentally was the last time the Rattlers played in the post-season.
“It’s nice to be back for sure,” said Heinrichs, whose team will face South Division top seed Briercrest (22-2) in the 3 p.m. game. “We had a 12-game losing streak, for a team to go through that and credit to the team, they didn’t get too frustrated. We won five games in a row that we needed to get in.”
“Pressure’s not on us, we’ve got nothing to lose,” added NAIT’s Victoria Ringuette.
In the other games, The King’s University (20-4) plays Ambrose (16-8) at 1 p.m. and Red Deer (21-3) faces Lakeland (18-6) at 8 p.m.
All four quarter-final matchups have potential for upsets, and the cost for losing is severe. While both of Saturday’s finalists will book spots to nationals in Quebec, the only way to get there is by winning your first two matches.
“It’s been an interesting season for sure,” said Lakeland coach Austin Dyer, named co-coach of the year for the North with Augustana’s Stephen Enright. “We have the ability to beat every team in this tournament, but we could also lose 25-10, all in the same match.
“You can’t simulate the pressure of your season being on the line in practice.”
Briercrest’s Nolan Weinmaster was named the South’s coach of the year. Briercrest nearly went unbeaten this season, but a loss to Red Deer two weeks ago was a good reminder nothing will be handed to them.
“It was a really good loss, we learned a ton from it,” said the Clippers’ Erickson, the ACAC’s all-time career assists leader. “It’s going to be a full team effort all weekend, we’re excited to compete.”
Augustana comes in as the hottest team of the bunch, having won 16 in a row to take the top North seed away from King’s. Really, though, nobody’s looking past opening day.
“We need to play the best volleyball that we can play,” said Red Deer’s Kelly Heinemann. “We need to perform in the way we know we can, support one another no matter how the game’s going.”
“There is an excitement and there is a nervousness, but it’s not bad,” added Jada Lea, a third-year setter at King’s. “It feels like the nervousness is going to push us, we’re going to flow into more of a calmness and a strength. It’s a good energy.”
