The Strathmore High School Spartans Boys Volleyball team has been building all season long.  The team has a large portion of Grade 12 members and they are really athletic says Head Coach Cole Hintz.   The first half of the season was used to give an opportunity to the Grade 11 students at the setting position and some middle spots, to get them used to play at that level.  Once they improved, towards the second half of the season they were able to really raise the bar and start developing winning strategies that led to a tournament win at Saint Martin de Porres High School.

This tournament pitted the local teams against some of their rivals in the Zone, which gave them real insight as to what they will be facing.  After winning their pool, the team headed to the playoffs and Hintz relays the flow of play for those matches, "In the playoffs, we had a really close match against Canmore, they played very well, but we found a way to pull through in three sets.  The semi-final we ended up playing George McDougall out of Airdrie.  They ran the middle a lot at us, which gave us something different to adjust to, but our middles did a really good job."

"In the final, we played a really solid Medicine Hat High team.  There was some really good defense being played, some very hard-hit balls, but our guys did a really good job staying calm and executing at a really high level for two whole sets," he said.

Their next challenge will be the Zones competition on November 15 and 16 at the Strathmore High School.  Hintz is ready for the unpredictable nature of their league, "Our zone is usually pretty competitive.  Ourselves, Canmore, Cochrane, Springbank, George Mac even Highwood have some good players on their teams.  It is one of those things that anything can happen on the weekend, but we are definitely going in feeling good about what we are doing on our side of the net."