Zeniths win 4A provincial banner

By Lethbridge Herald on November 28, 2022.

Herald Photo By Justin Seward The Magrath Zeniths celebrate winning the school's first ever 4A provincial after defeating the Centennial Coyotes on Saturday at Catholic Central.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Magrath High School Zeniths senior boys volleyball team are 4A ASAA high school Provincial champions after defeating Calgary’s Centennial Coyotes (25-21, 25-15, 23-25, 27-25) in a nail-biting  match at Catholic Central on Saturday night.

The win caps off a storybook season for Zeniths where they had a record of  58-3 in matches and they were a 2A school that played their first year at a 4A level.

“I mean it’s surreal, for sure,” said head coach Shane Orr.

“It’s a goal we’ve had from the beginning of the season and it’s just something the boys put a lot of work into. And it’s hard with something like this when you play so many good teams, you just don’t know what’s going to happen, right. Sometimes you come out flat on the weekend and your  weekend’s over early and other times you play really well. So we just trained as hard as we could and put a lot of effort into working towards that goal , practice-by-practice and weekend-by-weekend, and this group pulled it out.”

Orr thought  composure is what got the team through a match that was back and forth and them battling back at times.

“You know, Centennial’s a great team,” he said.

“We knew that coming in. We fully well expected to go deep in  to this game with them and when we went up 2-0 early, we just told the guys to weather the storm and if things get tough to just don’t panic.”

Orr said, “It’s huge,” when it comes to  winning both the league and provincials titles in the same year.

“We have won league before as a school and that was a first for us years ago,” said Orr.

“And then you know we went on to win a 3A provincial championship and that was a first and then we did that again.”

Going into this season, the Zeniths looked at competing again in 3A and go out  in hopes of a repeat, but then looked to 4A and to give themselves a shot at that.

“We knew it would be tougher,” said Orr.

“But it was something the boys wanted to do. They said coach, let’s do something hard and for these boys at 15, 16 , 17 years old, to have that kind of mentality, is awesome.”

Orr and the team will remember this ride with their team culture.

“Yeah, a medal is awesome and  a shirt is great, a championship banner is fantastic,” said Orr.

 “And it’s a first for the school, absolutely, and that will go down in history forever as the first 4A championship.”

“And whether there’s more later on or not, we don’t know. But team culture is 100 per cent what I want the memory to be and I think these boys know that.”

“We were just trying  to chip away there at the end ,” said co-captain Kale Orr.

“We knew we could come back from it. We just had to hang in there and make them play.”

The Magrath Pandas won the silver medal at 2A provincials.

The Cardston Cougars defeated Cochrane (25-18, 25-19) in the bronze medal game of the 3A boys championship at Winston Churchill.

Kate Andrews  Pride won silver in 2A boys.

The Stirling Lakers won bronze in the 1A girls provincial at Picture Butte.