After a strong first full season, the Portage Hurricanes volleyball club is back in action this summer, building on momentum with a pair of training camps for local youth at the Central Plains RecPlex in Southport.
Vice executive director Shasta St. Louis says the July camp was a hit with players, and the team is excited to keep the energy going.
“Rick Scott came out and helped us with it, which was awesome,” she notes. “He has a lot of knowledge in volleyball and he's coached university level, coach of the year title, stuff like that. It went really good. The kids loved it.”
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The August camp kicks off Tuesday and is aimed at getting players ready for the school season.
“We’re going to go through everything—serving, passing, setting—just so they have a good chance to work on everything,” St. Louis adds.
Drawing players from across the region
The Hurricanes’ summer camps welcome both boys and girls, mostly ages 14 to 17, and pull in participants from across central Manitoba.
“We’ve had kids out from MacGregor, there’s Sandy Bay, Ebb and Flow, St. Claude, Oakville, Elm Creek,” she continues.
The July camp brought out around 40 players, and organizers hope for at least as many next week. Registrations will be accepted until Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
Building toward club season
While there are no tournaments over the summer, the focus remains on keeping kids active and improving.
“Just the camps to keep everybody in shape and touching a volleyball all summer,” St. Louis says. “We’re going to be running camps through September to November on Sundays just to keep everybody still active while they’re playing for school. Then we will do tryouts for the club teams in December and then we’ll start club in January.”
The Hurricanes program, now in its second full year, is seeing growing interest; especially as volleyball regains popularity in the region.
“It’s slowly coming back,” she remarks. “I know when I was younger, it was huge and Portage competed quite competitively around the province. I think it’s slowly starting to build back up and hopefully we’ll get her back to where we were.”
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- Young athletes shine in Portage Hurricanes volleyball program