Pitt Meadows volleyball players forced to miss provincials

The Marauders are up in arms.

The Pitt Meadows Marauders AAA senior girls volleyball team won the Fraser North District Championship, and were poised to represent their school at the provincials for the first time in decades. The trip was spiked when School District 42 decided they could not travel.

They were supposed to drive in a parent convoy to Kelowna on Wednesday, Nov. 30, but that was a snow day in the district and district staff forbade travel.

Coach Sue Haras found a bus that was available, and made new hotel arrangements. The team hoped to head out early Thursday morning. They could get to the provincials in time for a 2:30 p.m. Thursday game, to open the tournament.

They started an online petition that said in part:

“The SD42 school board superintendent, Harry Dhillon, and assistant superintendent, Cheryl Schwarz, denied PMSS’ senior girls volleyball team to travel to Kelowna for provincials because of dangerous weather conditions on the Coquihalla. However, all other districts, including those who closed schools for snow days, were allowed to go and have all made it to Lake Country safely.”

Player Mara Dirlau started the petition on Wednesday, which got almost 1,000 responses, hoping it would cause a reversal of the decision.

“I felt change needed to happen, and people needed to know what was going on,” she said.

Again, the district said no to travel on Thursday, due to road conditions.

The girls were devastated, still don’t understand why they were the only school to not travel, and would like to meet with the school board to discuss the issue.

Team member Presley Shaw Jaworek said the girls were in shock at the district’s intransigence.

“We had gone so far, and we were going to provincials, and then they just said ‘no’.”

Another teammate, Hannah Bigiolli, had expected the district to help the team find a travel solution, and found the flat refusal “really devastating.”

The girls had a dream season. After COVID-19 disrupted sports for two years, they were at the top of their game, and able to play off in front of packed gyms cheering them on. They were the top team among those in Maple Ridge, Burnaby, and Coquitlam, and were bound for the provincials with high expectations.

The decision to not allow them to travel was bound to be hard to take, but made far worse by the fact that other Lower Mainland teams were at the big tournament. Surrey’s Earl Marriott Mariners and Grandview Grizzlies rented a bus and travelled together. The R.A. McMath Wildcats of Richmond won the tournament, beating the West Vancouver Highlanders in the final.

“We would have taken it differently if 15 of 16 teams hadn’t attended,” said Bigiolli.

In the neighbouring community of Maple Ridge, two private school teams from Maple Ridge Christian were sent to the volleyball provincials, where they safely made it in time to compete in the A girls and A boys tournaments, which took place in Prince George and Duncan, respectively.

Dirlau said some of the Pitt Meadows girls have realistic chances of playing university volleyball, and would have been seen by scouts and coaches at the tournament.

“It’s such a big opportunity missed,” said Dirlau.

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The district said it was a safety issue.

“We sincerely regret the circumstances that led to the difficult decision of having to cancel this trip,” said spokesperson Irena Pochop. “The decision was not made lightly and involved a great deal of discussion. The central issue for us was what we considered the unreasonable risk of having students transported by volunteer drivers across highways that had road condition advisories in place. Advisories were in place on both Wednesday and Thursday, and included warnings of compact snow, slippery conditions, limited visibility, and poor travel conditions.”

“We did connect with some of the schools that had athletes travelling to the games, and discovered they had prearranged charter buses for their players. In our case, most of our players were to be driven by volunteer drivers in private vehicles. We explored on Thursday the possibility of having the students fly instead, but the cost would have been significant, and not all players would have been able to arrive on time, so the team would still not have been able to play.”

“We know there is nothing we can say that will lessen the disappointment of our student athletes and their families. Our senior girls’ volleyball team worked hard to earn this opportunity, and there is no question they deserved to participate in the games.”

Pochop said the incident has flagged the need to review planning for field trips, and moving from volunteer drivers to chartered buses or flights for trips that require travel across highways during winter driving conditions.

Parents of the Pitt Meadows players, including Peter Jaworek, said the team was denied the opportunity to travel by bus, or by air, last week.

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