Double gold

Roddickton's Cloud River Academy is a volleyball school.

The boys and girls Timberwolves travelled across the island to provincial championships earlier this month and each returned last week with gold medals.

The boys' tournament was held in Wesleyville, near Gander, where they edged out Twillingate's J.M. Olds Collegiate Tigers in the finals, while the girls travelled to Port Aux Basque to square off against Bishop's Falls Leo Burke Academy in the finals, narrowly taking it in two sets, 26-24 and 25-23.

Girls' setter Terri Pittman said there were nerves heading into the final match.

"We played them before and beat them by more than that, but they came back harder in the championships," said Ms. Pittman, who has been on the squad for the past four years.

The provincial championship is the girls' third in three years, though the first two came while competing in AA (up to 75 enrollment).

This season the two teams made the jump to AAA competition (76-199 enrollment), which was based on the 77 students enrolled at Cloud River the previous year. This year, however, the school's enrollment dropped into the 60s.

Girls coach Rhanda Martin said her side brought intensity to every match.

"They went into this tournament kind of thinking they were the underdogs, because we're a smaller school, but they played perfectly together as a team," Ms. Martin said.

Both the girls and guys team practice four to five times per week and travel to Corner Brook for VolleyFest in the fall and then host the Diggers Classic in October before competing in regionals. (This year's season was different because the H1N1 scare prevented high school teams from travel.)

"It's always been, you could say, a volleyball school, where there's a lot of interest in volleyball, more than other sports," said Ms. Martin, who has been the girls coach for the past eight years. "But now it's become more competitive; they know when they're trying out for these teams that it's going to take a big commitment, they're going to be practicing four or five days a week, maybe more, they're going to be travelling to tournaments. It is hard for kids like that, they're giving up a lot of their social lives as teenagers, but they realize it takes that commitment to win and they do it."

This victory was the first for the boys' team, though they've come painfully close in past tournaments.

The boys rallied back from 12-1 in the first set to take it 25-21 on their way to gold.

"It takes a lot of composure, when you're down by a big deficit, but we came back, played every point," power hitter Daniel Gillard said.

"It was amazing. Every year we went to provincials we lost in the semi-finals, or got put out in a three-way tie, so this was our first time winning it, and it was a lot of the guys' from last year."

Six players on the boys team are graduating this year.

Coach John Ping said his team was "euphoric" after winning.

"They couldn't believe they did it. They've been waiting a long time for this. The core of this team has been working together for the last four years. We've done fairly well but we've always come in second place or third place," Mr. Ping said.

He added: "When they got to the finals they were pretty determined they weren't going to let this one slip away from them. They came in on a time out, they weren't dejected, they kept their spirits up and said lets keep fighting, lets keep digging and lets get one point at a time."