It was a busy week for the North Star Wolves senior girls volleyball team.
The Wolves had two WECSSAA Tier 1 league games and hosted their own tournament on the weekend.
In the first of two WECSSAA games, North Star travelled to Tecumseh to play L’Essor. They dropped to 1-2 on the season after losing to the Eagles two sets to one.
L’Essor won the first two sets by scores of 25-16 and 25-14 before North Star won the third set 25-18.
The Wolves evened out their regular season record at 2-2 two days later. They had another road game, this one in Kingsville, against the Erie Migration Coyotes.
The Wolves won two sets to one last Thursday evening and won 25-10, 25-22 and 25-15.
“Our defense in the first and third game was a lot better,” said assistant coach Mary Ewer after last Thursday’s match at Erie Migration District School. “Overall, it was good.”
North Star head coach Jeff Miller thought it was a “pretty good” match against the Coyotes.
“We had good stretches,” said Miller.
The Wolves played a clean game in the first and third sets, he added, but the Kingsville school played better in the second game. In the second set, North Star had to pay for their mistakes but were solid in the first and third sets.
“We’re a work in progress,” said Miller.
Miller said they are slowly building on their skills and improving as they go as the Wolves are comprised of many players new to the sport or at least new to senior volleyball. Only Lauren Essenpreis and Addison Prieur returned from last year’s team.
“It takes time,” said Miller.
There are “peaks and valleys” and Miller added “we’re showing glimpses” of promise so far this year.
The juniors dropped to 0-4 with a pair of losses last week, at the same schools as the senior team but against their younger counterparts. L’Essor won 25-22, 25-10 and 25-18 Dec. 10 and Erie Migration won 25-9, 25-12 and 25-22 last Thursday.
The Wolves hosted the Black & Gold Volleyball Classic on the weekend with the seniors playing Friday and the juniors on Saturday.
The seniors finished second in their pool of four with a 3-3 set record, which qualified them for the Silver Bracket.
“We beat Riverside 2-1 (27-25, 22-25, 15-12) in the semis then beat Sandwich 2-0 (25-21, 26-24) in the final,” said Miller “Overall, it was a good weekend for the girls and the team - lots of growth and development.”
Both the seniors and juniors wrapped up the 2024 portion of their schedule this past Tuesday night in Amherstburg with matches against Tecumseh Vista Academy.
They resume after the holiday break Jan. 7 with the juniors hosting Villanova at 4 p.m. and seniors following suit at 5:20 p.m.
Busy week for North Star Wolves girls volleyball teams
By Ron Giofu
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