CEC boys cruise to volleyball tournament title

TRURO, N.S. – The Cobequid Cougars high school boys volleyball team capped an undefeated tournament weekend with a victory over the host Horton Griffins in the gold-medal match.
CEC won the final in straight sets – 25-12, 27-25.
The Cougars collected round-robin match wins over Avonview (25-20, 25-18), Dartmouth (25-17, 25-23), Lockview (25-18, 25-16) and Horton (23-25, 36-34, 17-15) to finish first in their pool. CEC opened the playoffs with a quarterfinal win over SCA (25-15, 25-16), followed by a semifinal victory over Dartmouth (25-23, 25-19).  
Leading the Cougars were Noah Boudreau (81 per cent passing efficiency, 18 service points, 63 kills), Nick White (77 per cent passing, 13 service points), Aiden Fitzpatrick (18 perfect passes, 42 defensive digs), Nikolai Foerster (4.0 dig-to-error ratio), Zach Morris (55 per cent kill efficiency), Daniel Dahr (19 kills), Nikolas Sante (5.5 block points) and Grade 10 Aiden McIntyre (50 per cent offensive serving).
Next up for the Cougars is the annual Dalhousie University High School Challenge in Halifax.
Meanwhile, the CEC varsity girls team earned a bronze medal at the Cougar Classic. The tournament was played at CEC and Dal-AC gymnasiums and had the top 25 teams from Nova Scotia and P.E.I. competing.
The Cougars defeated Parkview 25-6, 25-15 in the bronze-medal match after losing in a semifinal to C.P. Allen in an exciting three-set match 25-16, 17-25, 17-15.
The CEC junior varsity team lost to J.L. Ilsley in a close quarter-final match by scores of 16-25, 29-31. C.P. Allen went on to defeat J.L. Ilsley in three close sets in the final.
The varsity girls finished first in their pool with a 4-0 record. They had straight set wins over Charlottetown Rural (25-9, 25-13), Halifax West (25-19, 25-15), Northumberland (25-16, 25-17) and Sydney Academy (25-16, 25-10). The Cougars were ranked first going into playoffs. In a quarter-final they played Halifax West and posted an exciting come-from-behind victory, winning by scores of 20-25, 25-22, 18-16.
The JV girls finished second in their pool with straight-set wins over Bluefield (25-13, 25-17), Dartmouth High (25-16, 25-23) and Middleton (25-15, 25-14) and a straight-set loss to C.P. Allen (23-25, 19-25). The JV squad was ranked seventh going into playoffs and defeated Sir John A (25-21, 25-16) to advance to the quarter-finals against J.L. Ilsley.
This weekend, the varsity Cougars will be competing in the Dalhousie invitational high school tournament, while the JV Cougars have the weekend off.