Following her stint playing for Canada at the NORCECA qualifier in October, Hilary Howe has been playing at a new level for the 22-2 TWU Spartans women's volleyball team. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Volleyball

After 2019’s five-set national tourney heartbreaker, TWU Spartans head coach Ryan Hofer asks “…how can we all be two points better?”

LANGLEY — The more Ryan Hofer stared at a set numbers which represented perhaps the most crushing defeat in the history of Trinity Western women’s volleyball, the more clearly he was able to decipher their truest meaning.“Two points,” Spartans’ head coach Hofer exclaimed Wednesday morning when the topic got around to his team’s epic five-set […]

After leading Victoria's Belmont Bulldogs to back-to-back B.C. AAAA senior girls volleyball titles, Savannah Purdy has played a big role as a freshman in helping Trinity Western to the No. 1 spot in the latest U Sports women's volleyball national rankings. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2018. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Volleyball

Savannah Purdy: Trinity Western’s fantastic volleyball freshman already embodies the ethos of U Sports’ No. 1-ranked Spartans

LANGLEY — Ask Trinity Western women’s volleyball coach Ryan Hofer what the most challenging aspects have been for his star rookie hitter Savannah Purdy to adjust to in joining a line-up that has gone into the Canada West winter break as the No. 1 team in the nation, and he correctly amends the question.

Belmont Bulldogs' Jocelyn Sherman (7) and Taylee Pomponio (14) celebrate a point during last season's B.C. AAA championship run at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures)
Feature High School Girls Volleyball

Belmont girls volleyball: No. 1 Bulldogs’ quest for B.C. title three-peat rides on its three degrees of dedication

VICTORIA — You’ve heard of the six degrees of separation, but when it comes time to calculating the steps of togetherness for the Belmont Bulldogs senior girls volleyball team, it’s more about the three degrees of dedication. 

North Delta's Seaquam Seahawks and the Earl Marriott Mariners of Surrey are both represented in Varsity Letters' Super 15 B.C. girls high school volleyball list. (Varsity Letters photo by Howard Tsumura)
Feature High School Girls Volleyball

The Varsity Letters’ Super 15! It’s our annual list of B.C.’s top senior girls volleyball players!

Welcome to what has now grown to a near full-decade tradition. It was back in 2009 when local university coaches first began their own poll for The Province newspaper to determine the B.C. high school girls volleyball Player of the Year.

Twice as nice. Victoria's Belmont Bulldogs (left to right) Gracie May, Taylee Pomponio, Olivia Godek, Hannah May and Savannah Purdy celebrate their second straight B.C. AAAA volleyball title Saturday at the Langley Events Centre. (Paul Yates, Vancouver Sports Pictures)
Feature High School Girls Volleyball

Bulldog believers: With early disaster averted, Belmont girls perform on pressure-packed road to win B.C. AAAA title

LANGLEY — It’s special to arrive before your time, yet as the Belmont Bulldogs can tell you definitively, it’s a status which immediately demands an encore performance. And in sport, just as in life, you reap what you sow.

Reigning AAAA MVP Savannah Purdy assures all that the Belmont Bulldogs' road to the 2016 B.C. title was hardly an overnight success story. (Paul Yates/Vancouver Sports Pictures)
Feature High School Girls Volleyball

Bravo, Belmont! Instead of becoming Bad News Bulldogs, Victoria’s quirky defending BC champs celebrate each other

LANGLEY — Ask Savannah Purdy to describe the worst volleyball team in the entire history of her sport, and with a lighthearted laugh, she would likely pick the team she was a part of during her Grade 6 season at Victoria’s Spencer Middle School. “I remember in the very first tournament, the first game we played, […]