After falling just one win short of qualifying for the 2024 BC AA Championship tournament with a veteran lineup, the SMUS Senior Boys Volleyball team has a different look this season.
Head Coach Brady Doland has only two Grade 12 returnees on his 2025 roster and he will rely heavily on them to lead the Blue Jags this season. Rightside/middle Seb Allard, a potent hitter and blocker at 6-foot-5, and bouncy outside power hitter Tommy Hong – both of whom started last season for the Jags – are the players this year’s SMUS lineup is built around.
“We’ve got quite a few Grade 11s,” Doland says. “But we’ve also got some size and some great athletes who we are excited to turn into volleyball players this year.”
The SMUS Senior lineup also features a Grade 10 in a key role this year in setter Kevin Li, whom Doland has pulled up from Junior to orchestrate his team’s attack after the loss of veteran captain and setter Connor Kipling, who has graduated to playing post-secondary volleyball for Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ont. this fall.
Other Grade 11 players Doland will rely upon include 6-1 outside hitter Eric Thompson, 6-4 middle Ryan Wang, libero Benjamin Lei, right side Azaad Gill, backup setter and right side Liam Whiteside, power hitter Adam Zilber, and 6-5 middle Jack Harris, a newcomer to the school from Kelowna who has never played volleyball before but brings size and raw athleticism to the lineup.
Nineteen athletes tried out for the Senior Jags, however a few potential players were lost to eligibility issues. Nevertheless, Doland and Assistant Coach Noah Natividad are keen to guide a team that is big and has the potential to be a strong hitting squad. The challenge will be in the team’s service-receive game. How much the Blue Jags improve in that area as the season progresses will be a key in how they fare.
“Honestly, we have no idea how we’ll stack up,” Doland says of where his team lines up on the Island or BC scenes. “We won’t be [provincially ranked], but it’s always our goal to get to provincials.”
It’s been 10 years since Doland initiated the boys’ volleyball program at SMUS. The team qualified for the BC tournament in its first three years of existence but hasn’t been back since before the COVID 19 pandemic, as the provincial and Vancouver Island AA volleyball fields have become extremely competitive. Doland predicts that Pacific Christian will be the AA team to beat on the Island this year with local rival Lambrick Park and Mark Isfeld of Courtenay also expected to be in the mix.
Last year, the Blue Jags went 17-3 to win their first-ever Lower Island league regular-season title before falling to Lambrick in the South Island final and then again to the host Lions in an Island AA semifinal. It will be a challenge to replicate or improve on that showing with a younger team this season, but Doland has front-loaded the Jags’ schedule with a string of tournaments and hopes to see steady improvement leading up to playoffs.
SMUS actually saw its first tournament action last weekend in the Camosun Invitational, where the Blue Jags went 2-4 in six matches. The team was missing all its Grade 11s due to school out-trips and was bolstered by a number of call-ups from the Junior Boys for the event. Doland said he saw “a lot of positive things” from his short-handed team during that initial tournament action.
This coming weekend, SMUS will travel to Langley for the Trinity Western University tournament, which will feature a tough field. The Blue Jags will also compete in a Spectrum tournament Sept. 26 and 27. And SMUS, Oak Bay and Royal Bay will combine to host a 28-team tournament Oct. 3 and 4.
Regular-season play in the nine-team Lower Island AA league began this Wednesday. The top four AA teams from the Lower Island will advance to the Island Championships, Nov. 14 and 15 in Ladysmith. Only the first- and second-place finishers from Islands will qualify for the BC AA Championships, Nov. 26 to 29 in Prince George.
While this might be considered a rebuilding year for the Senior Jags, Doland notes the depth of the relatively young SMUS program, which has boys’ teams at the Grade 6, 7 and 8 as well as both Junior and Senior high school levels. That depth was evident in the fact 28 boys tried out for the Junior team this month.
