The Prairie Fire U17 team had a strong first day of provincials to carry them into the championship round in Brandon over the weekend.

After a 3-1 record on Saturday launched them into second place in their pool, the Prairie Fire went 1-2 in the championship round on Sunday.

The Prairie Fire defeated SNVC (25-8 and 25-22), Hawks (25-9 and 25-14) and Flash (25-8 and 25-18) before losing to the eventual champion Mavericks (25-9 and 25-10) on Saturday.

In Sunday's playoff round, the team fell to the Amrak Vision (25-15, 21-25 and 15-5) before defeating Winman (25-20 and 25-16) before losing to Vision (25-20, 23-25 and 15-10). The team placed sixth overall.

Head coach Carol Stewart said Saturday saw the team play its best volleyball of the season.

"Everything was going well on Saturday," said Stewart. "All the girls came to play at the right time.

"We were steadily getting better every weekend that we played, and we were just fortunate enough that everything came together this weekend."

On Sunday, the team was in tough against some strong opponents, but didn't back down.

"We moved to the championship side, and I would say that was a realistic goal for us, to get to that championship side" said Stewart. "In our quarterfinal match that morning, we went to three sets and ended up losing in the third set."

The Prairie Fire have played their last game in Manitoba for the season, but will play at nationals in Toronto from May 18-22.

For more, please see Tuesday's edition of the Portage Daily Graphic.

dan.falloon@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: PDGdfalloon