Isla’s 12U Volleyball Season

April 29, 2025

Isla had a pretty amazing volleyball season this year. I ended up assistant coaching her team once again this year, however, this year our coaches were able to draft the A team, aka Gold team. We picked 12 amazing girls. Practices began in the new year, and we ended up playing a tournament in North Vancouver, going undefeated and winning all of our games to finish first. At this point, us coaches (Matt, Steve and myself) knew we had something good brewing!

Some team bonding after a game against the older 13U Air Attack Black team where we actually beat them 1 set out of 3.

Here the girls are partaking in a Women’s UBC Thunderbirds quarterfinals match at War Memorial Gym at UBC.

Hanging out in Coach Steve’s old French Immersion classroom that he taught out of:

Our first Volleyball BC sanctioned tournament took place on Vancouver Island in Victoria. We ended up finishing first at that tournament amongst 10 teams. This included some elite clubs including Thunder, BCO and PCVC.

Isla got MVP for the first day of this tournament! Here she is with the golden ball.

Celebrating our Tournament win:

The girls also had some fun hanging out in Victoria. Here they are doing a scavenger hunt:

Our second tournament of the year took place at Harry Jerome, a Volleyball BC Lower Mainland Super Series tournament. This tournament consisted of 26 teams from around the Lower Mainland. Here’s Isla creating clips (they decorate clothes pins and then pin them on other girls throughout the tournament without the other girl knowing they’ve been ‘clipped’).

Day 1 results:

Day 2 results in Div 1 playoffs. We were in the top pool, and ended up 1-2 that day, but was placed second based on sets won and lost. PCVC Black was 3-0 and dominant.

Here’s our win against Thunder Blue that day.

https://www.youtube.com/live/NExOre03Cbc?si=4zI4HwzTFvbrPqhq

Bubble tea after the tournament:

Our 3rd tournament was the Regional Championship, held close to home in Richmond! This only consisted of 13 teams but would be important in seeding for Provincials. We ended up 3rd in this tournament. Both PCVC clubs finished first and second.

As you can see, we would be in Division 1 in the provincials based on our finish in this tournament.

Games from this tournament:

https://www.youtube.com/live/tjnSt8kIEuw?si=2pnb5xYLNrBYA3Rx

https://www.youtube.com/live/N4cOzGa8WrQ?si=4S8sVJolztbCbnCO&t=10

https://www.youtube.com/live/dovB-h1CkH0?si=3Bn_zbDy3biT84bu&t=28

Then finally, the culmination and last tournament of the season… provincials! Here’s the program from provincials prepared by Volleyball BC.

Here we are after day 1:

A tournament consisting of 32, 12U teams from around the province.

Here were the final results from the tournament for our team:

It was a grueling weekend, but a rewarding one. Consisting of 6 matches, where we went 2-1 in pool play, won our quarter finals match against Ducks White in 3 sets, that guaranteed us a top 4 finish. We then lost to PCVC Black in the semis (the eventual winners, and whom were dominant this tournament), and beat Seaside Surf in the bronze medal championship match in 2 sets (but we came back from a 20-10 deficit in that 2nd set) to win 3rd place in the entire province. I’m so proud of Isla, and so proud of all 12 girls. They were resilient, and such an awesome group of girls to coach. I had such a great time coaching them to this accomplishment.

Here’s the bronze medal match vs Seaside.