The high school volleyball season has officially kicked off in Whitehorse, and the quick turn around from sign up to first game has caused some incredible leadership and performances from the girls, coaches say.

The Grade 9/10 girls and boys teams played their first games of the season at Vanier Catholic Secondary School and the Grade 11/12s had theirs at F.H. Collins Secondary School on Friday and Saturday.

Vanier, F.H. Collins and Porter Creek Secondary School took part in the tournament, with the Grade 11/12 boys teams from F.H.C. and P.C.S.S. preparing for a road trip to Vancouver in the coming week.

On Saturday, Vanier's girls B team took on F.H. Collins' girls A team, and despite losing all three sets they showed improvement throughout and managed to keep the score a few points behind for most of the game.

At the beginning of the game it looked like Vanier wouldn't put up much of a fight, with the girls missing shots and not calling the ball, causing a few easy points to slip away.

While the girls struggled to claim ownership, the points kept coming in for the F.H. Collins Warriors.

A few minutes into the first set Vanier's coaches called a quick break, which seemed to be just what the girls needed. They came back after with three quick points, proving the short chat with their coaches successful.

During the first set the Warriors demonstrated their ability to set up shots to each other early on. Many serves coming to their side were slowed down, where a setter would take control and pass it in front of the net to another teammate to spike over.

These shots proved difficult to come back from for Vanier.

When Vanier did catch a break and earned a serve, the Warriors were quick to take back control and steal the serve back.

The final score for the first set was 25 to 10 for the Warriors.

In the second game Vanier hit back with some perfect serves, closing the gap between them and the Warriors.

Vanier discovered through the second game a weakness in the Warrior's line - shots that fall close to the net. The Vanier girls did their best to exploit this. They caught a few easy points by blocking the ball, tipping it slowly over the net where the Warriors had difficulty popping it up into a position where another teammate could hit it back.

At this point the Vanier girls seemed to have their spirits lifted, gaining them a few points until a Warrior's serves found a perfect hole in the their lineup. The serves dropped into the back quarter one after another, where the Vanier girls were unable to pop the ball back over. F.H. Collins gained many points this way, taking the game 25 to 16.

The girls decided to play their third game, despite the Warrior's victory after winning the first two.

In this game Vanier made their biggest effort yet. Plays went on forever, with the ball bouncing back and forth. During one particularly long play, with both teams determined to win the point, Vanier finally ended it when one girl went up for a block, dropping the ball in front of the Warriors where they were unable to recover it.

The Warriors took the first two points in the set and kept the two-point advantage throughout until about halfway, when the game tied up.

The final score was 25 to 18 for the F.H. Collins Warriors.

Both teams had lots of input from their coaches throughout all the games, and despite Vanier's loss, even they ended on a high note.

Terri Park, one of Vanier B team's coaches says this was the first time the girls had played together in competition. She was very happy with her team's performance.

"They're very smart, they're learning their positions,” she said.

Park says many of the girls haven't been on a volleyball court in a few years, with only a few of them playing in their Grade 8 season.

Even so, Park says, "they're competitive with some of the A teams.”

The F.H. Collins Warriors A team's coaches Aisha Alwarid and Cheri Levy were proud of their girls, who won three out of their five games this weekend.

"It was a very exciting weekend with our girls,” Alwarid said on behalf of herself and her fellow coach earlier this morning. "It's great to see the girls do so well and work so hard.”