Though they have been practicing hard, the Pearson Bengals Senior Boys Volleyball team has not won a single game all season. With three games left in the season, time is running out for the Bengals to pull it together.
They may be steadily improving, but Pearson’s senior boys volleyball team is still in search of its first win of the season.
The 0-12 Bengals, winless in six matches (two games per) fell to R. H. King on Oct. 16, 25-13, 25-16, leaving them solidly in last place in the East division of the city standings.
Coach Joe Blake, however, remained supportive of his players despite their dismal performance. He noted that Pearson did not have a Senior Boys volleyball team last year.
“Because we have such an inexperienced team, every game is a challenge,” Blake said. “I don’t think we’ll have a winning season.”
There are signs of life, however.
“They’re getting better at serving the ball in the court,’ he said. ’At the beginning of the year a lot of (the balls) went into the net and a lot went out.”
“Their spiking is also getting a lot better.”
Since the beginning of the season, Blake had also changed up the team’s original four-two formation to a five-one. This change has the Bengals playing with five hitters and one setter, improving their defence, instead of their original arrangement of four hitters and two setters.
Bengals’ Sunny Bains thinks all the team needs is more time to find its legs.
“All these games that we’ve played, we’ve just been making minor mistakes,”he said. “We can work on that with more practice.”
But with only three games left in the season, time is running out for the Bengals to pull it together.
“They’re still not blocking the ball,” Blake said of his team. “When you don’t block then [the other team] get the points.”
Blocking was just one of the problems that plagued the team in their previous game against the Albert Campbell Celtics, who beat the Bengals 25-15 and 25-17.
“They didn’t do court coverage of defensive zones to defend from spikes and tips, and that hurt us a lot.” Blake said of the game against the Celtics.
Not everyone on the team, however, agreed entirely with Blake.
“I think we’re pretty good at blocking the net,” said 16-year-old Joel Pereira. “But I think we have a lot of stuff to improve on, like knowing where to go and where to move for positioning.”
The Bengals are set to play Sir Wilfred Laurier C.I. on October 22.