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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, March 3, 2016 | 38 HALTON TRANSMISSION 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com Kevin Nagel Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports ha l ton v o l l e y "Connected to your Community" ba l l T.A. Blakelock Tigers' Hazel Brown (in green) attempts to spike the ball past St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders defender Jessie Nairn during the Halton senior girls' volleyball final at Sheridan College. The Tigers went on to win 25-21, 17-25, 25-15, 25-22. | photo by Graham Paine ­ Oakville Beaver Tigers edge Raiders, both OFSAA-bound By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff It is the friendliest of rivalries. Two schools on the same Oakville street separated by less than three kilometres. Proximity alone should make it an intense feud. But when the T.A. Blakelock Tigers ended the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders' undefeated season with a four-set victory in last Thursday's Halton senior girls' Tier 1 volleyball final, the only way to tell who won and who lost was by the colour of the medal draped around the players' necks. Players hugged their opponents and laughed after the Tigers' 25-21, 17-25, 25-15, 2522 victory. But make no mistake, both teams wanted to win. Badly. "It's been a dream to beat them since Grade 9," said Blakelock's Grade 12 power Hazel Brown. "We've beat them in tournaments before," added Kaleigh Jeffrey, "but never in league play." "It was a mental hurdle," said Tigers' coach Pam Bovey. "They always thought, `We can't beat Aquinas,' but they left it all on the court today." With upwards of a dozen players, coaches and former players from the Oakville Thunder rep program on both sides of the net, the rivalry is more about bragging rights than any ingrained hatred. "It's fun playing them," Brown said. "We tease each other at practice." The Raiders' loss was cushioned by the fact that it didn't end their season. Both teams won Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference semifinals Monday and will fill the two available spots for GHAC at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations AAA championships. They played each other yesterday (Wednesday) for the GHAC title, which might affect seedings at provincials. The Tigers had not won a senior girls' volleyball title since 1978 -- a couple of lifetimes for the current Blakelock players. Early in the Halton final it was the two No. 8s, Brown and Aquinas's Jessie Nairn, matching one another kill for kill. Three straight aces by Olivia Wilson gave the Raiders some momentum and they looked to be on their way to victory in the opening set, leading 21-18. However, led by Brown and Sydney Wales, Blakelock reeled off seven straight points for the win. Aquinas returned the favour in the second set, blowing up a close game with 10 straight points behind Nairn's strong serving and some well-placed shots by Emma Guerin and Jess Arnds. With Brown drawing attention from the Aquinas blockers, Maya Reid effectively mixed sets to Jeffrey and Julia Scott and Sofia Sartor provided good defensive play in the back row as the Tigers' pulled away in the third set. In the fourth, Brown showed off an equally impressive defensive game, coming up with several key blocks. The core of the Tigers team went undefeated on its way to a Halton Tier 2 junior title two years ago. The Tigers went 5-5 last year after making the leap to the Tier 1 senior ranks and this season went 11-1, with their only loss against, you guessed it, Aquinas. "We just wanted this so much in our last year" Jeffrey said, "and prove to everyone that we could do it." And they did it in a highly competitive league. Blakelock lost the opening set in its semifinal against Nelson but rallied to win the next two and advance. Aquinas was also stretched to the limit, going three sets in its quarterfinal against Christ the King and then rallying from a 12-7 deficit in the deciding set of its semifinal match against Garth Webb to win 16-14 "Nobody likes to lose, but we lost to a good team," said Aquinas coach Peter Szpakowski. "We knew we could have lost in the quarter-finals or we could have won the whole thing. We ended up somewhere in the middle." The OFSAA tournament is scheduled for March 7-9 in North Bay. ALL YOU CAN EAT Lunch or Dinner 10% off Dinner* Dine in & cAsh onlY *With this AD Dine in for All You cAn eAt 280 North Service Road W. @ Dorval, Oakville 905.338.6228 7 DAYS A WEEk www.august8.ca