Neelin completes AAA boys three-peat

The Neelin Spartans started the season with tempered expectations.

Three months later, they shattered them.

A team with just one returning player ran the table at AAA varsity boys’ volleyball provincials, sweeping the title favourite Garden Valley Zodiacs 25-21, 25-20 in the gold-medal match in Winnipeg on Saturday, becoming the first-ever AAA boys team to win three straight crowns.

“The start of the season, we went in there thinking, ‘Big growing year.’ We were going to get a lot of stuff done, make us better, not really worried about how we were going to come out in provincials, tournaments,” said Lucas Gamache, who scored the championship point in 2024 and was named an all-star this year.

“We went in there with the right mindset and mentality to play our hearts out, and we got the job done. Weren’t expecting it, but we went in there and gave it our all and thought, ‘Don’t let the other team affect us.’ I thought we did a really good job of that.”

Despite two big injuries during Neelin’s home tournament, the Spartan Dig, a month ago, it managed to maintain a top-four seed for the preliminary round. Playing in the top power pool, the Spartans swept the Louis-Riel Voyageurs, Zodiacs and Linden Christian Wings to earn the top seed for the elimination portion.

However, the presumed No. 5 seed Niverville Panthers went 0-3 in pool play, meaning the Spartans were rewarded with the toughest possible quarterfinal on Friday.

Gamache said the team watched a few Niverville matches at its hotel on Thursday evening and knew it’d be a battle.

Sure enough, one of the few teams they hadn’t seen all year bounced back from a blowout 25-17 first set to take the second 25-14. Neelin eked out a 15-11 victory in the tiebreaker to reach a semifinal against Louis-Riel on Saturday morning.

Again, it won the first set but dropped the second, snagging a nail-biter of a third 15-12.

Down the stretch in key moments, Gamache was the go-to guy and delivered one big kill after the next.

“I’ve always had that mindset playing the higher teams and always competing,” he said. “I found out the tips and the rolls, they never work when it’s that intense a game. The only mindset I have going into that high-intensity game is you gotta hit the s… out of the ball. You can’t score any other way.”

So the Spartans were back in the final against a Zodiacs team they hadn’t defeated until Thursday — and one that didn’t lose a single set to anyone else all weekend.

While Neelin was down a starter in outside hitter Case Ashcroft, who fractured his right ankle during the Spartan Dig, it had the month to adjust with Jackson Burgess on the outside and Eric Charbonneau at libero.

Garden Valley thought it would have its MVP, Alfredo Enns, back for the biggest matches of the year, but he suffered an injury and had to miss the medal rounds.

“It kind of sucked that Case went down and Sam got hurt for a little while, but he got healed and got better, and we really just focused on the little things, the energy, coming together and playing as a team,” Gamache said.

“Those two three-setters we had prepared us for what Garden Valley had.”

The result was, with Gamache the best player on the floor, as decisive a championship match as you’ll see.

Sam Rempel, who moved from Alberta for his senior year, earned an all-star nod, while setter Aiden Moore was named MVP a year after receiving the same award at JV provincials last year.

“I was very excited and I was a little surprised as well. I knew it could have went to anyone on the team. Everyone had an outstanding tournament, everyone deserved it, and I’m grateful I got the chance to have it,” Moore said.

Gamache said it was a great all-around effort, crediting everyone around him and especially highlighting the guys who put him in positions to succeed.

“Aiden set well. He was doing a great job of getting the ball to everyone … me and Jackson just did our part of using the block, T-lining it,” Gamache said.

“Eric did an amazing job on defence. He was passing the ball really well. The last three games of Eric were amazing; he stepped it up a lot. His defence was a lot better.”

Most of the group will be back next year, with the obvious goal of an unfathomable fourth title in a row. For now, they’re just enjoying the moment.

“To do it for Sam, Parker (Arthurson), the Grade 12s, amazing,” Moore said. “Even to just do it as a Grade 11 corps, that just shows how good we can potentially be next year.”

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