There's no shame in losing to the best.
And that was the case for the G.P. Vanier Towhees at the 2014 B.C. AAA High School Boys Volleyball Championships, held Nov. 26-29 at the Langley Events Centre.
The Towhees advanced to the quarter-finals of the 20-team event, where they fell 3-11 (21-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-17) on Friday morning to defending champion Earl Marriott Mariners.
The Mariners went on to defeat Oak Bay 3-1 in the semis, then Kelowna 3-1 in the final to win their second straight B.C. AAA title.
The loss to Earl Marriott dropped Vanier down to the placement bracket. There, they defeated Gladstone 2-1 (25-23, 20-25, 15-9) to advance to the game for 5th/6th against Fraser Heights. The Courtenay crew dropped a 2-0 (26-24, 25-23) decision to take sixth place.
After finishing third in Pool F with a 1-2 record, the Towhees defeated Van Tech (second in Pool G) 3-2 on Thursday afternoon. It was a nail-biter, with the scores 18-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-16, 19-17.
In pool play, Vanier lost to Fraser Heights 15-25, 25-22, 10-15; beat Delta 25-21, 25-20; and lost to Gladstone 19-25, 15-25.
The Mariners proved a double thorn in the Towhees' side, as Earl Marriott's Devon Cote denied Vanier's Braydon Brouwer a second straight Spike Contest crown.
In the third and final round of the competition, Cote edged Brouwer (who was named to the first all-star team) by an extremely narrow margin on the spike-ometer reading.
Reaching nearly to the top to the scale – in the “King Kong” range – both players were right there, with Cote slightly registering a higher shot right at the end.