Talk about a Sonic boom.
Vernon’s Seaton Sonics – who only two weeks ago at No. 11 were on the outside of the B.C. High School Senior Girls AAA volleyball top-10 rankings, looking in – find themselves seeded fourth and in the top-four Power Pool A for the opening of the provincial championships.
The B.C. finals – which start Thursday, Nov. 27, and finish Saturday, Nov. 29 – are taking place on the same court the Sonics won the Okanagan Valley championship on Nov, 15, the Panther Pit at Vernon Secondary School.
Seaton defeated the sixth-ranked Vernon Panthers for the Valley title. The Panthers are still at No. 6 for the provincials as host team, and in Pool B.
Provincial tournament games are also being played at Fulton Secondary and Kalamalka Secondary.
“I told the girls at the beginning of the year, I didn’t really care about winning or losing in the tournaments, as long as we kept getting better, and that’s proven to have sunk in with the girls,” said Seaton head coach Jay Jackson, helped on the bench by assistant coaches Coralee Hamilton and Melaina Ovington.
Power Pool A features the top four ranked teams. The Sonics will open Thursday, Nov. 27, at 10:15 a.m. against the No. 1-rated Point Grey Greyhounds of Vancouver.
Seaton will play the No. 2 Holy Cross Crusaders of Surrey at 12:45 p.m., and will finish opening day at 3:15 p.m. against the No. 3 seeded Crofton House Falcons of Vancouver. Crofton House is the reigning provincial champion. The Sonics won bronze in 2024, and return four players from that squad.
“They’re like an underdog. Teams don’t take them seriously,” said Jackson of his charges. “We’re peaking at the right time. We haven’t been in the top 10. We should have, but they never put us in there.
“The girls have seen pool and they say, ‘Have you seen who we play?’ Yes, I’ve seen it but I tell them ‘this is what you’ve wanted. This is where you want to be. You play better against the better teams. None of the other teams know. They know nothing about us, we know nothing about them, other than they’re ranked higher than us.’”
The only gym the host Panthers will not play at on opening day in Pool B is their own.
The host Cats will start the provincials Thursday playing the fifth-ranked York House Tigers of Vancouver at 11:30 a.m. at Fulton Secondary.
VSS will face the seventh-seeded Esquimalt Dockers of Victoria at Fulton at 2 p.m., then travel to Coldstream to wrap up opening day with a match against the eighth-ranked College Heights Cougars of Prince George at 4:30 p.m.
The Okanagan’s third representative, the Valleyview Vikings of Kamloops, are in Pool C, ranked No. 11.
Playoffs start Friday morning, Nov. 28, at 9 a.m. at each school.
The gold-medal game is slated for 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29, at Vernon Secondary.
Just who will be in the final, according to one coach, is anybody’s guess.
“I think overall, the majority of teams that are here, any team can beat anybody on any given day,” said Jackson. “I wouldn’t say there’s one clear favourite. It’s wide open.”
Tournament and day passes are available at the doors of all three schools.