By Erin Parks
The Immaculata Saints are gunning for a spot at provincials, but their journey to the top has been a long one.
Five years ago, Immaculata high school’s senior boys’ volleyball team could hardly win a game.
Coach Alain Dubé says that was partly because many members of the team had never played volleyball before.
“The whole boys’ volleyball program was going nowhere. There was no junior team and the senior team couldn’t get anywhere,” Dubé says.
“Our boys were trying to compete with teams that had much more experience.”
That year Dubé and his co-coach, Trish Reilly, began a junior boys’ volleyball program.
Dubé says they designed the program as a learning process to teach players both skills and teamwork, and to give them lots of practice and playing time.
“We tried to get them to work hard – love the game, so when they moved they would have a chance at success,” he says.
This year’s co-captain, Ivan Karin, was a member of the first Immaculata junior boys’ volleyball team.
He says the experience and the practic0e have helped him become a stronger player.
All the hard work has paid off.
The senior boys’ team finished the season in second place in the region’s Eastern Conference, with a record of 10 wins and one loss.
Dubé moved up with some of his junior players to coach the senior team this year.
“I feel really proud as a coach and as a teacher to see the senior boys have some success, when at the beginning they were being laughed at,” he says.
Dubé says the team hopes the winning streak will continue through the regional playoffs and into the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ senior boys’ high school volleyball tournament.
Only one team per region qualifies for the provincial tournament, and Dubé says his team plans to be there.
But first they have to get past the one team they lost to in the regular season.
“We have to beat Osgoode,” says Karin. “We can go all the way if we play like a team, play like we want it.”
Karin says he’s pleased to have the chance to play on a winning team this year, but says that even now the team does not always play to its potential.
Leo Kam, the other co-captain, says the team can be overconfident, and the players perform only as well as they have to.
“We don’t play our game. We play the game put before us. That shouldn’t happen at this level,” Kam says.
That overconfidence could get the team into trouble, but both Kam and Karin say that if the players work hard, they could make it to provincials.
“If we can get all our team motivated, and get them to play like they want to win, I don’t think any team could beat us,” says Kam.