It’s go time for the Victor Brodeur senior boys volleyball program.

The team won the Island championships last week over Duncan Christian and are ready for a battle as they host the provincial volleyball ‘A’ championships this weekend.

Victor Brodeur will fall into one of two pools with six teams each. Round robin play is Thursday and Friday with crossover playoffs starting Saturday morning.

Nathaniel Kitzke, a Victor Brodeur grad who also played volleyball for the team, is in his third year of engineering at the University of Victoria and his second with the team in a coaching capacity. Last year he was an assistant having assumed the reins as head coach this season.

“We’ve been working all year round for this and there’s only one addition that wasn’t on last year’s team,” said Kitzke. The coach points to this weekend as the team’s last chance to perform at the high school volleyball level, as seven of the nine players are in their graduating year.

One of those seniors is Albert Akoury, who’s found a home as the team’s libero. The defensive specialist is looking forward to the tournament, and says he relishes his role on the team.

“I love it,” said Akoury before practice on Tuesday. “I’ve got the whole back row. I get to control a good portion of the court, and it works for me,” he explained, referring to his height of 5-foot-4. “I’m not going to go up and make big shots, I’m small and fast on my feet so it’s perfect for me,” said Akoury, who took a few dives during practice.

The big hitting, he says, falls on the shoulders of two outside hitters who happen to be brothers, Bryan (Grade 11) and Sebastien Vincent (Grade 12), as well as middle hitter Sylvain Verrier.

Akoury has studied at Victor Brodeur since Grade 2, but didn’t get on board with the volleyball team until his Grade 10 year. Even then, he said, the team only really started getting serious about this time last year at the ‘A’ provincials in Smithers.

“We played hard,” said Akoury, “but at provincials last year we saw all these great teams and great players and thought, ‘why not us?, let’s play like them.’”

Since then the team took on a more serious persona, added more practice time and entered into extra tournaments, too. Not only have the boys signed up for some men’s league action, but they entered into the under-18 bracket of the Francophone national games in Edmonton this summer.

“We basically ended up representing B.C., and finished seventh,” said Kitzke, who was in a similar situation when the team, plus one player, finished fifth at the 2005 Francophone games in Winnipeg.

“It’s not every year we get an athletic group of males at Victor Brodeur,” said Kitzke, “so we’re seeing where we can take it.”

The team finished 11th at last year’s provincials but have come a long way and are ready to dig and kill their way to a top five result, if not better.

sports@vicnews.com