The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, March 13, 2015 | 22 Sports Double Eagle Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com "Connected to your Community" Abbey Park repeats as OFSAA girls' volleyball champions by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor When the ball hit the floor for the final time Wednesday at the provincial high school girls' volleyball AAA championships in Ingersoll, the Abbey Park Eagles didn't quite know what to do. They went into their signature `penguin dive', all sliding headfirst into the center of the court to celebrate their victory. But when you've won as much as the Eagles have over the past few years, that's more automatism than anything else. It took a while to sink in that the Eagles had won their second straight Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations championship -- if it's sunk in at all. "After the game, we just looked at each other. It was over. This was it. This was our last time," said Sarah Williams, one of several returning starters from last year's OFSAA champion squad. "I actually had to ask a girl on our bench what just happened. I blinked and everyone was on the floor. And it was like, `Well then, we just won OFSAA.'" The ending of Wednesday's five-set provincial final against Stouffville probably contributed to the surreal feeling. Abbey Park barely had to touch the ball to win the last two points as the Spartans served out of bounds to give the Eagles a 14-13 lead, then hit the ball into the net after Abbey Park's Tori Gorrell floated up a conservative serve on match point. The Eagles may have also been drained emotionally after winning the first two sets of the final, 25-20, 25-19, only to see Stouffville pull even with 27-25, 25-23 wins in the next two sets. Abbey Park raced out to leads of 7-2 and 13-9 in the decisive game, but the Spartans again rallied to tie the game 13-13. The Eagles' tight victory contrasted last year's OFSAA tournament, when Abbey Park lost just one set -- the first set of the final against Oakridge -- on its way to gold. "The great thing about this team is the way they respond when things don't go great," said Eagles coach Julie Burr, whose team also suffered a rare loss at this year's tournament, falling 2-0 to host Ingersoll during pool play. "We knew Stoufville was a fantastic team and they wouldn't go down without a fight. The girls played great, kept thinking positive. There's not much more you can ask for than a 15-13 win in the final set." Burr stressed the importance of playing for each other as a family during the tournament, and her players certainly bought in. During warmups for the Eagles' quarter-final game against Malvern, Burr was hit squarely in the head by an errant serve, leading to concerns that she had suffered a concussion. Abbey Park used it as a rallying point, pounding Malvern 25-10 in the opening set. "You could see how angry we were. Tori's face was scary," Williams said. " We're family and we stick up for each other. That's what held us together." It's the same family mentality that welcomed Kristin Drury -- who missed last season due to a concussion of her own -- into the starting lineup this season, and embraced the addition of Grade 9 setter Samantha Nevado as well. "We're amazed with our setter. `Wow' is all I can say. She was the best setter we could have asked for," said Gorrell, who will play for NCAA volleyball power Penn State next season. "Sammy came into high school volleyball and she was shot right into OFSAA." "I wasn't a part of last year," added Drury, credited by Williams and Gorrell for her rapid improvement this season. "Not that I was intruding, but I wasn't sure if I would go well with the chemistry of the team. But they were so welcoming. We were a family. We do have a family dynamic. We really do have each other's back." Libero Brady Martin, who would substitute into the back row for Drury, and Grade 11 student Melissa Langegger were also key contributors to the Eagles' title repeat. "Brady saved us a lot of balls this year," Williams said. "And Melissa really pulled through at OFSAA. One thing she's not consistent on is her serving... but she put seven or eight in a row over the net during finals. We thought she might crack under the pressure, but I haven't ever seen her serve like that." A second straight OFSAA gold makes for a nice way to leave Abbey Park for Williams and Gorrell, former Ontario champions in beach volleyball who did not lose a single Halton league match over the past four years. "A few girls cried from pure excitement and also, wow, this is the last time we'll play together," Williams said. "Abbey Park Eagles, that's the last time we got to show ourselves. We're happy it ends this way." Other members of this year's Abbey Park squad are Laila Ahmed, Maddie Cummins, Onaope Egbedeyi-Emmanuel, Tristan Hutchinson and Jenny Torrens. Appleby wins its second OFSAA girls' hockey gold -- and fourth medal -- in five years by Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver Staff It was seven minutes into overtime of a scoreless game when Appleby College coach Kim Devereaux sent Maddie Sisokin over the boards to take a faceoff. Sisokin had been dominating in the faceoff circle and playing three-on-three in the provincial high school girls' hockey gold medal game, if the Blue Dogs ever needed a faceoff win, now was the time. As Jaime Bourbonnais saw Sisokin skating on to the ice to join herself and Amy Curlew, the blueliner realized they were the last three remaining players from Appleby's Grade 9 team. "This is it," she said. "We've got to do it right now." Moments later, Sisokin won the draw, Curlew got the puck back to Bourbonnais at the point as Sisokin headed to the net. Sisokin was parked at the edge of the crease when Bourbonnais' shot was stopped and dropped in front of her. She backhanded the puck, but lost sight of it. The next time she saw it, it was lying in the St. Theresa Titans net. "It was amazing," the Grade 11 student said. "Honestly, I just looked around and we jumped on each other. It was unreal." The latter part perfectly describes Appleby's Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations gold-medal run in Ottawa. After going 3-0-1 in pool play, the Blue Dogs won three straight overtime games to lay claim to the school's second OFSAA gold in five years. see Blue on p.23