After squaring off in a hard-fought consolation quarterfinal match, Brentwood College School placed ninth and Duncan Christian School finished 15th at the Camosun Chargers Senior Girls Volleyball Tournament in Victoria last weekend.
The teams' play at the massive event showed that both are on the right track.
DCS got off to a strong start in pool play, beating both Princess Margaret Secondary and Vic High two games to none to finish atop their group. Brentwood, meanwhile, finished in the middle of their pool, beating Little Flower Academy 2-0 and losing 2-0 to Timberline.
After DCS lost 25-12, 25-13 to Ladysmith, the eventual fourth-place team, and Brentwood fell 27-25, 25-21 to Ballenas in the first round of the playoffs, the two Valley teams squared off in the consolation quarterfinals, where Brentwood prevailed 26-24, 25-11.
"We came out very strong against Brentwood and owned the play through most of the set, very exciting," DCS coach Dave Vanderschaaf said.
DCS lost standout Brenna Bazinet for the second set and had to change things up, which resulted in a "messy and scrambled" game for the Chargers.
"The plus side is that everyone got some court time in the second set," Vanderschaaf said. "Unfortunate to lose that way though after seeing how well we played them the first set."
Brentwood defeated Claremont 30-28, 24-26, 15-12 in their last match of the tournament, while DCS went out with a 26-24, 25-23 loss to Belmont.
"[It was] exciting watching the girls come back right away after losing a point or two," Vanderschaaf said. "We got every player in the game on this one. We did have a fivepoint lead in the second, but Claremont came back to tie it up. We had a couple of hits just miss near the end and let the match get away."
Vanderschaaf was particularly pleased to have competed with Brentwood in the consolation quarterfinal.
"What I'm excited about is the fact that a team like Brentwood will likely do quite well at the AA provincials," he said. "For us to have that awesome first set against them makes me think that we can have a really good provincial run this year. We'll be working hard on the team cohesion end of things to make sure they are all bonded together well, and from there I think they'll be a very fun team to cheer for."