The Camosun Chargers women’s volleyball team has made the Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association National Championship for the first time since the 2016-2017 season.
The Chargers scored silver in that tournament. The team squeezed in one last practice at PISE before travelling to Quebec City next week. Camosun enters the tournament seventh in CCAA national rankings, which sets the squad up for a quarter-final match-up with host school Cégep Garneau.
Fifth-year Charger Katie Wayling is excited to travel to nationals in her final year with the team. The Castlegar native was with the team when they hosted nationals back in 2016-2017, and says playing their way into this year’s tournament is the cherry on top of her high school career.
“We never have actually qualified before so this is the first time I’ve been with them where we’ve qualified our way….I’m looking forward to playing the host team the first match up. I know it’s going to be a loud environment but it’s going to be buzzing, I’m excited!”
Second-year student Hannah May is keeping things into perspective as the team readies for Quebec. May plays on the team with younger sister Gracie and says that making nationals with such a young team is an accomplishment in itself.
“We definitely had it as our end goal, to make it to nationals. We were a pretty young team last year and we’re a pretty young team again this year..so I think just making it this far is incredible for us.”
Cégep Garneau enters the tournament as the third-ranked team in the CCAA. They’ll also have a huge support network of hometown fans rooting them on. Even though they enter the tournament as the underdogs, head coach Brent Hall says the team is ready and resilient heading into Quebec City.
“This crew has been through kinda some low lows at times and they’ve worked so hard to get where they’re at and back to more fitting with the reputation that the program has. I’m excited to see what they can accomplish”
The tournament kicks off next Wednesday.
Cole Sorenson
