Two Cochrane High School volleyball teams are off to the provincials this week after successfully competing in 3A zone championships in the South Central Zone of the Alberta Schools' Athletic Association. 

The Cobras senior girls went undefeated in the tournament, hosted by Canmore, to secure a spot in the provincial finals in Sylvan Lake, Nov. 23-25. The Cobras are widely expected to be one of the favourites after a season that has seen them go undefeated in Rocky View Division and now the 3A zone finals. They beat the Strathmore Spartans in the zone final two sets straight for the title. Strathmore also advances to the provincials.

The senior boys' team lost the zone final to Strathmore to settle for silver. They came out of the round-robin with a 4-1 record, won the semifinal but lost to Strathmore 2-1 in a close third set.

"We just came up a little bit short and made a few unforced errors in the third set," says head coach Doug Jensen. "Other than that we went point-for-point with them and had a really close game, we just came up on the losing end."

Prior to that, they topped their pool with a 4-1 record, then beat the George McDougall Mustangs in straight sets in the semifinals.

That's yesterday's news, though, and the Cobras go into the tournament with a clean slant and a chance for a provincial title.

"We kind of came in the back door but that's fine, we'll embrace the opportunity to go to provincials this weekend. The slate is clean and we won't worry about what happened in the final match last weekend and just do our best."

"It really is a difficult tournament, and there is a lot of good teams and at this point pretty much anybody could win. These are the best 3A in the province and it comes down to who's best on a certain day."

Both Cobra teams play five games in the round robin and the top three in each pool advances to the playoffs.

Also in the area, the Cremona senior girls team won gold in zones for 1A schools and are off to the provincial championship in Bonnyville.

Cochrane High's junior varsity teams also had strong performances in the zones. The boys' team won gold in the finals against the W. H. Croxford Cavaliers and the girls won silver, with the Springbank Phoenix coming out on top.  There is no provincial championship for junior high school volleyball.