École secondaire de Par-en-Bas wrapped up a great senior high school boys volleyball season by winning silver at the NSSAF Division 1 championships in Bridgewater, losing in the final to Cobequid Educational Centre.
The Par-en-Bas team finished first in its tournament pool – which included Park View, Auburn and Sackville – then faced West Kings in the semifinal round, winning in two straight sets to advance to the final against Cobequid.
In the final, Par-en-Bas coach Claudette Deveau said her team got off to a slow start in the first set but played very well the rest of the match, losing 16-25 and 23-25, as CEC took the provincial title.
She said she was impressed with the play and the effort of both teams in the final.
“There were many long rallies, not too common in the men’s game,” she said. “Not too many balls hit the floor on either side. It was an awesome end to a great season.”
Par-en-Bas and CEC had played each other a couple of weeks earlier in the western regional championships, the Cougars handing the Par-en-Bas team its only defeat of that tournament too.
(Cobequid is in the Northumberland region, but because CEC had no teams to play in its own region, the NSSAF opted to have the Cougars play in the western regionals to try to earn a berth in provincials. Par-en-Bas still took the western regional title, despite losing to CEC, since Par-en-Bas fared better than any of the western teams in their regional tournament. Both Par-en-Bas and Cobequid advanced to provincials.)
Referring to the Par-en-Bas team’s performance in the provincials, Deveau said the players left the gym proud of what they had done, not just in the provincials but also during the season.
“In the Division 1 tournaments that we participated in, we only lost to CEC,” she said. “A very good record, considering the population of our school and the others we competed against, especially CEC.”
