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Senior
Girls Volleyball
French
board schools sweep Tier 1 volleyball championships
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans
Online
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|  Identical
twin sisters Mallory (left) and Chelsey Litjens hoist the championship plaque
after winning the NCSSAA senior girls 'AA' title on Wednesday.
Fred Sherwin/Photo
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The power
in senior girls volleyball has shifted to a pair of French board schools after
the Louis-Riel Rebelles and the Gisèle-Lalonde Titans swept the Tier 1
city championships on Wednesday to each earn a berth in the OFSAA provincial championships. In
the A/AA championship match, the Gisele Lalonde Titans girls one-upped their male
counterparts by winning the NCSSAA title which had eluded the boys in November.
The Titans
were coming into the match having dispatched Franco-Cité in straight sets
in the semi-finals, while De La Salle needed a fifth set tiebreaker to get past
Samuel Genest. Led
by identical twins Mallory and Chelsey Litjens, who both stand 6-foot-1, and fellow
U18 Ottawa Mavericks member Elyssa Lanoix, the Titans took the first set with
relative ease, winning 25-14. De
La Salle put up a much better fight in the second set, but Gisèle-Lalonde
was still able to win by five points. The
third set turned out to be a real nailbiter as De La Salle was determined not
to get shut out. Trailing 20-17, they scored five points in a row to take a three
point lead. up 22-20. The
Titans got it back to 22-22 and 23-23, but De La Salle managed to put themselves
in position to extend the game to a fourth set serving at 24-23. When a spike
attempt went long, the score was once again knotted at 24-24 and it was Gisele-Lalonde's
turn to force match point with Chelsea Litjens serving. De
La Salle managed to avoid defeat not once, but twice, staving off match point
at 25-24 and 26-25. They couldn't do so a third time, however, and the Titans
won the set 28-26 to claim the championship plaque. After
the game, head coach Mathieu Gatien gave all the credit to his club players and
especially the twin towers. "They
make my job a lot easier. Their very easy to coach and they really support and
help out with the other girls," said Gatien. As
convincing as the Titans win was over De La Salle, Louis-Riel's victory over Glebe
in the AAA/AAAA final was pure perfection. Led
by provincial team member Myrian English, the Rebelles won in straight sets for
the 13th time this season, making them one of only a handful of teams to have
gone through the entire season without losing a single set. Both
the Titans and the Rebelles figure to be in the mix for a provincial championship
next weekend. The Titans will be travelling down Hwy. 7 to play in the 'AA' tournament
in Perth, while the Rebelles will be gunning for provincial gold at the AAA tournament
in Stratford.
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| Members
of the Gilsèle-Lalonde Titans ham it up after winning the NCSSAA senior
girls AAA/AAAA volleyball championship on Wednesday.
Fred Sherwin/Photo
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(Posted
3 p.m., Feb. 25) Return
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