Jr. Wildcats golden at Scarlett and Gold Classic

The Widdifield Senior and Junior Wildcats both made it all the way to the Scarlet and Gold Classic Volleyball tournament finals at the event which took place at Chippewa Senior Secondary over the weekend.

Friday night, the Cats faced a tough team, Notre Dame from Sudbury. They were easily handled by Notre Dame, the squad from Widdifield regrouped and handed Huntsville a huge loss taking them two straight and not allowing more than 10 points in each of the two sets.

Saturday morning the Wildcats played Franco Cite from Sturgeon Falls and were able to hand Franco a two set loss. Setting up a huge match seeing the Wildcats 1 vs.Wildcats 2 team and what turned out to be the game of the tournament. Both teams splitting on the first two sets and one of the squads starting 6-0 lead in the third set before the other team fought their way back point by point. In the end the final score was 15-14.

The game featured great setting and some hard hitting, and even better defence. With Cammeron Hudson and Ryan Phillipson both having 8 kills each in the three set match. Kai Nimi made the game winning point to secure his team at third seed going into the play off round.

In the play-off round, the Wildcat’s two teams were both in the semifinals. One team played Notre Dame and the other played the top ranked Innisdale team from Barrie. The team from Barrie self destructed in the semi finals and as a result allowed one of the two Wildcat teams to advance to the finals. The other Wildcat team went three sets with Notre Dame and lost a close one in the third set. The final was no disappointment as the Wildcats were ready to play the only team that had beat them soundly in round robin on Friday.

Brad Herzog dazzled the fans with some massive smashes and amazing jump serves. All of which were either miss passed or not passed at all. The Wildcats were in control of the game from start to finish winning both sets with relative ease. Graham Dufore and Greg Katsuno, time and time again passed perfect balls to setter Tim Callahan allowing him to control the game with near perfect sets that kept Notre Dame guessing as to who and where the ball was going to be hit. At one point having so much confidence on the passing of his team mates, Tim was able to run tandem plays pretty much at his will. A very impressive display of volleyball for such a young team. The Wildcats are heading into the playoffs this week vs. Algonquin. Their first game will be on Monday at 4:30 p.m. at Widdifield S.S. The team is coached by Danny Gosselin and David Buckle. Special thanks to out to long time Widdifield coach John Jeffries who was able to help out for the weekend.

Submitted to BayToday.ca