Undefeated N.B. girls volleyball team 'devastated' it can't compete for national title

A group of undefeated female volleyball players from Moncton trained for two years, won every tournament, outperformed older athletes and became the best in New Brunswick. But it wasn't enough to earn a shot at the under-15 national championship this year.

Volleyball Canada regulations place the Cyclones in the third tier for the nationals in Alberta this week. The best the team can finish is 17th.

Coach Jon Clinch said team members trained hard to fulfil their dream of playing at the tournament's highest level, or within the top two tiers.

It wasn't an unrealistic goal. The team won the Canadian under-14 championship last year. Progressing to under-15 this year, the team went undefeated and won the Atlantic title.

"Nobody can believe that a provincial champion doesn't get to compete for a national championship," Clinch said in an interview. "On top of the fact that we won the national championship the year before."

Volleyball Canada's ranking system allocates points to each province. The Cyclones say they maxed out the number of points they could have earned over the past year for New Brunswick and still don't qualify for the top two tiers at nationals.

Clinch said the points system is hard to understand, but the team didn't expect to receive the ranking it did.

"It was a surprise to us because of the fact that we won the nationals the year before and the resume we had this year," he said.

Volleyball Canada told the Cyclones that guidelines are based on a weighted point system. It allots points based on a team's ranking going into provincial championships and its rank coming out.

Each age/gender also has a unique point scale based on the past six to 10 years of data of how each province or territory performed at