Langley Christian Lightning senior boys volleyball team finished their season by winning the provincial championship banner for the first time since 2017.
It was a satisfying finish for a team that had competed in three straight previous gold medal matches (2019, 2021, 2022), coming second each time.
At the AA Provincial Championship, which ran Nov. 30 - Dec. 3, at Pacific Christian School in Victoria, the gold medal match Saturday afternoon, Dec. 3, pitted Lightning against MEI, a back-and-forth test with LCS winning the first two sets and MEI climbing back to take sets three and four.
Fifth set was a back-and-forth battle, with Lightning up a few points only to have the Eagles to fight back.
The final championship point saw Zach Hofer’s serve returned with a free ball, Elijah Lindberg passing to Willem Van Huizen, who passed to Anthony Muller, for the match point winning the provincial championship and one more banner to finish off a record-breaking season in which the senior boys won four major tournaments.
Lightning Head Coach Brynden McTavish, said the team’s rallying cry at provincials was “Let’s do difficult things.”
“We knew that if we could do difficult things on and off the floor all year that by the end of the season we would have the capacity to continue to do so,” McTavish explained.
“Being able to bring each of those banners home in arguably the most difficult tournaments in their own right, showed that we were capable of difficult things on court. I’m incredibly proud of this group of strong young men, who I have no doubt will go out and continue to do difficult things in the world.”
Eric Van Huizen, assistant coach, credited the team for having “good leadership and good character guys which made the entire season fun and we as coaches saw some great improvement in all the guys. Our parent group that supported us all year was a huge bonus,” said
Lightning Willem Van Huizen was named tournament MVP, Zach Hofer was First Team All star, Anthony Muller was Second Team All star and Elijah Lindberg was named Most Outstanding Libero.:
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READ ALSO: VIDEO: Langley Christian Lightning take silver at provincial AA volleyball championships
Is there more to the story? Email: dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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