Junior Hawks Soar To SWOSSAA

Only days after the Chatham-Kent Secondary School senior boys failed to make OFSAA for the first time in 17 years, the CKSS Junior boys team proved that the school is still a volleyball powerhouse.

The CKSS Junior Boys volleyball team defeated St. Joseph’s of Windsor 25-16, 20-25, 26-24, 25-14 in front of a packed student crowd, to capture the SWOSSAA title.

“The boys progressed so well this season,” said CKSS head coach Tim Liedl following the win.

“As a team, we had some personal goals. One of these goals was to have no regrets. We wanted to put in the hard work in practice, but more importantly we understood that there were things that we could control and thing we couldn’t control. We understood that we were going to go through stretches of not playing our best, and where we would make mistakes. We saw that tonight, in the second and third sets.”

After a dominating first set, CKSS struggled in the second set, and had to come from behind in an emotional, and momentum shifting third set.

“Two of our focuses this season were on communication, and trust,” said Liedl. “I was super impressed with our boys tonight, because they followed through in both regards. They picked each other up and regrouped when they were down. Coming back to win that third set, being down 24-21 was huge. The boys bought into each other and played positionally sound defense. We ran with the momentum into the fourth set and never looked back.”