Former Innisfail Junior Senior High School student and athlete Brianna Fehr took her education and her sport to a new level of success this year.
After spending her first two years of school at Mount Royal University playing for the Cougars volleyball team, Fehr thought her volleyball career was over when she transferred to the University of Calgary to finish her degree in kinesiology.
However, just before the start of the second semester Fehr got a call from her old team saying they had lost their setter and asked if she would consider coming back to Mount Royal to finish the year with them.
Fehr agreed and was soon registered as a full time student with both schools taking three classes at each.
Her choice to rejoin the team paid off when the Cougars won the Provincial Championships, which they hosted in Calgary.
The provincial win qualified them to move on to the national championships in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The girls were seeded in third going into the tournament but played well making it through the quarter final round to a tough series in the semi-finals.
They ended up going right to the fifth set of the semi-final game winning just 18-16 to take them to the finals.
The Cougars were a little bit of the underdog going into the final, said Fehr.
“We went into the final with nothing to loose. The adrenaline was going the entire time.”
In the finals the Cougars were down 2 sets to 1 so going into the fourth they had to win to move on. After a tight match with one close call on the last point the girls came back to win the fourth set and carry the momentum on to a 15-11 victory in the fifth, which earned them the championship title.
“Our coach said it was kind of a dream come true, “ said Fehr.
This was the first national championship win for any team at Mount Royal University.
Despite the busy schedule catching up on school now that volleyball had ended, Fehr said it was a good way to end her last year of volleyball.
Fehr began playing volleyball at Innisfail High School and also played with the U17 and U18 Dinos while in high school and the former Innisfail Invasion volleyball team.
