Cougars win again; Truro school wins ninth tournament title in 11 years

KENSINGTON -- The Cobequid Educational Centre (CEC) Cougars' No. One team continue to dominate the Kensington Intermediate-Senior High School (KISH) Volleyball Extravaganza.
The Cougars won the senior AAA-calibre girls' tournament for the ninth time in 11 years with a 2-0 victory over the Bluefield Bobcats in the gold-medal match of the 33rd annual event Saturday evening. Scores were 25-13, 25-22. It is also believed that CEC has won five straight KISH tournaments.
"We came here knowing we have a lot of work to do and we still know we have a lot of work to do," said CEC head coach Bob Piers. "Despite the fact we won, there's a lot of things we have to put together, although everybody on the weekend had their ups and downs, played very well at times and at other times didn't play very well."
The Yarmouth Vikings defeated Sackville 2-0 (25-22, 25-19) in an all-Nova Scotia clash for the bronze medal.
CEC advanced to the final by defeating host KISH 2-1 (20-25, 25-18, 14-5) in the quarter-finals, and Sackville 2-0 (25-20, 25-13) in a semifinal match. Bluefield downed Sydney Academy 2-0 (25-16, 25-22) in its quarter-final, and pulled out a 2-0 (25-17, 28-26) decision over Yarmouth in the semifinals.
"Bluefield's a scrappy team. . . they gave us a real good fight," said Piers, who added he saw an improvement in the level of play by the P.E.I. teams over last year.
"We were lucky to beat Kensington in three sets; this morning (Saturday), we lost to Colonel Gray and they beat us two straight, and we had a battle with Bluefield here tonight. All three of those teams look a lot stronger this year."
As for his own team, Piers has a lot of new faces -- nine to be exact.
"But that's a little misleading because we run two teams (at CEC)," explained Piers. "All these girls who didn't play on our No. One team last year played on our No. Two team and they came to every tournament like this tournament, so they have a wealth of experience even though they haven't played on the No. One team."
A record 15 teams from P.E.I. and Nova Scotia competed in the two-day tournament.
"It's a wonderful tournament," said Piers. "We've been coming for years and years. As long as they're running the tournament, we'll be here.
"(KISH head coach) Richard (Younker) does a great job organizing it, there's great hospitality from the people that are here and people over at the motel really look after us. What can you say? We really enjoy coming to this tournament."
Then, during the awards presentations, Piers added, "It's probably one of the best tournaments in the Maritimes."

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