With the first week of St. Michaels University School athletics already underway, the Senior Boys Volleyball team already had an early start to the season while the Senior Girls Field Hockey team will take to the turf this weekend. The Athletics Week in Review is published every Monday during the school year as a recap of the previous week and preview of the upcoming week.
Senior Boys Volleyball
The SMUS Senior Boys Volleyball team got an early start to its season this past weekend with a 12th-place finish in the annual Chargers Fall Classic tournament, hosted by Camosun University.
Using the tournament as both an extension of tryouts as well as some valuable exhibition experience, Head Coach Brady Doland’s team placed fourth in its five-team preliminary pool on Friday, beating Mount Douglas (25-18, 25-18) and losing to Claremont (20-25, 7-25), Nanaimo District (25-21,13-25,13-15) and Highland (17-25, 9-25).
Those results put the Blue Jags into the Tier 2 portion of the tournament on Saturday. SMUS opened with a 2-0 morning win over Gulf Islands before falling 2-0 to Pacific Christian School in its second outing of the day. In the 11th-place match, Duncan Christian beat the Blue Jags 2-0.
“It was definitely a tournament that we used as an extended tryout and everyone played,” said Doland, who will complete team tryouts this week. “We will focus on fundamentals this week before playing in the Trinity Western University tournament at the Langley Events Centre next weekend.”
Field Hockey
SMUS Field Hockey will conduct tryouts this week before the Senior Girls Competitive team sees its first tournament action on Friday and Saturday at the annual Friendship Cup, hosted at the Cowichan Sportsplex in Duncan. The season-opening tournament is a great way for teams from Vancouver Island and the mainland to get their teams some early competition with low stakes.
SMUS will play South Kamloops at 3:30 p.m. and face Queen Margaret’s at 6:30 p.m. in Friday games. On Saturday, the Blue Jags will meet South Okanagan Secondary at 12:45 p.m. before facing the Shawnigan Lake School senior team at 6:00 p.m.
SMUS will again field both Competitive and Development teams this season. Lower Island league play begins on Sept. 21.
Term 1 sports for the SMUS Senior School include field hockey, volleyball, rowing, cross-country, boys soccer, boys rugby and squash. Most teams are practicing and conducting assessments to formalize rosters.
In the SMUS Middle School, Grade 6, 7 and 8 soccer is well underway while the Grade 6-7 CAIS boys soccer team and Grade 6-8 CAIS girls soccer teams prepare for their upcoming competitions. The boys will participate in a tournament with other CAIS schools, hosted in October in Vancouver, while the girls head to Nova Scotia at the end of September for their competition. Middle School rugby and cross-country will also be well underway this term.
