The gold and bronze medal games of the High School Volleyball Championships were held Saturday at Vanier. In girls action the Porter Creek Rams took out the F.H. Collins Warriors in a rematch of the Supervolley finals. The Rams, which defeated the Warriors 3-2 in the Supervolley, were able to dispatch the Warriors in two sets.

Early in the first set the Rams got off to the quicker start gaining an early 5-3 advantage, which they stretched to 12-7.

The Rams quick start could be attributed to their defence. Although their attacking started off slowly no ball hit their side of the court. This forced the Warriors into making mistakes on their swings.

Through the strength of their middles, the Warriors were able to claw their way back into the set making it 17-14. The Warriors picked up their defensive intensity and tied the set 21 all, as their block began to shut the door on the Rams attack.

The Rams were able to win the ball back and get two serving aces in a row to push ahead 23-21. The Warriors won the serve back and served it to the Rams’ libero Emiko Jones Kinuyeteramura, who passed a perfect ball to setter and tournament Most Valuable Player Sarah Hardie. Hardie put a high ball out to Kendra Peters who smashed the ball through the formidable block of the Warriors to give the Rams a commanding 24-22 lead.

The Warriors were able to win the ball back one more time, but missed their ensuing serve to give the Rams the set 25-23.

In the second set the Rams came out firing and were strong in all parts of the game.

They grabbed an early 11-5 lead, which grew to 16-10 on a serving run by Hardie.

The Warriors made a run at the end getting the game to 21-18, but the early deficit was too much for them to overcome. Peters stepped to the serving line at 23-19 and did not relinquish it. The Rams won the match 25-19.

The victory was bittersweet for Kinuyeteramura. The Rams team is made up mostly of seniors, and for some this would be their last time playing together.

“I’m feeling sad and happy, it’s our last game together,” said Kinuyeteramura. “I’m so proud of them. We are just so tight, if we make a mistake it’s whatever, we always love each other. One of our goals was to have a lot of fun; a lot of us are graduating, we wanted our last game to be something we could remember fondly.”

From the start of the season to the end of the season Kinuyeteramura attributes the team’s communication as the biggest difference, to lead them to further success.

“Communication. At the beginning of the season we had a hard time getting things together,” said Kinuyeteramura.

“We had all the skills but we couldn’t put it together. The more we played the more we meshed and we came out on top because we were able to talk about things and fix it.”

In the bronze medal game the Vanier Crusaders defeated the Watson Lake Secondary School Bears, in a tightly contested match. The Crusaders won in straight sets 2-0.