The Senior Volleyball Championships came to a thrilling end on Saturday afternoon at Porter Creek Secondary School. The girls’ final was played between the F.H. Collins Warriors and the Vanier Crusaders.

With a win, the Warriors would secure the triple crown. They were already victorious at the Dawson Invitational Volleyball Tournament and the Supervolley final. They achieved this goal, defeating Vanier 2-0.

Warriors left-side attacker Maya Cairns-Locke said sweeping all the finals was the team’s goal at the beginning of the season.

“We missed it last year, and a lot of us are seniors this year,” said Cairns-Locke. “We decided that was our goal from the get-go. We just went in our first practice and said this is what we want to do.

“Our coach really capitalized on us just getting it and reaching it and we are so happy.”

Cairns-Locke said the Warriors had their strongest game of the season in the Supervolley final against Porter Creek. From there, she said, they just rode that momentum and continued to improve.

“After, we really used it to keep our momentum,” said Cairns-Locke. “We really picked up speed as the season went on. We really got to know each other and what plays we wanted to do with each other and it just really clicked in the last few months.”

Coming into the season the Warriors knew they were going to be a strong offensive team. Cairns-Locke said they worked hard to improve on the defensive end.

“We would do so many drills with our coach drilling balls and drilling serves at us until we popped one up,” said Cairns-Locke. “We knew we were going to be a strong offence from the start so we really tried to capitalize on focusing on defence.”

Cairns-Locke said the Warriors were excited to play the Crusaders in the final and that they gave them everything they could handle.

“They are a really good offensive team and strong on defence too,” said Cairns-Locke. “We would put so much over the net that they would put back over. It was a really fun game.”

In the first set, it was Cairns-Locke setting the tone for the Warriors from the service line. Her service run helped her team build an early lead. Vanier fought back to cut the deficit to four with some big swings from middle Nicole Farkas.

The Warriors picked up their defence at the net blocking everything. They also got good swings out of their middles and they took the first set 25-17.

In the second set, the Warriors amped it up a notch and Cairns-Locke said the team really put it all together.

“In the last set, we just kind of clicked,” said Cairns-Locke. “We just realized this was going to be our game and we just wanted to finish it.”

F.H. showed no weaknesses in the final set of their season. They got big swings from all positions and their defence picked up everything.

Vanier showed no quit and was still attacking the ball and getting good passes, it was just F.H.’s day. The Warriors took the final set 25-12.

The bronze medal game was just as entertaining as the final. In a back-and-forth match, the Porter Creek Rams got past the Robert Service School Knights 2-1.

In the third and deciding set, played to 15, the Rams made fewer mistakes and that proved to be the difference.

F.H. Warriors attacker Emma Boyd was named tournament MVP.