Sjoerd Witteveen
Louise Facca and Caleigh Whitaker open play this week at the SWATCH FIVB beach volleyball under-19 world championships in The Hague, Netherlands.
Sports
July 31, 2008 09:40 PM
By: John Cudmore
Don’t get the impression Louise Facca and Caleigh Whitaker are heading to the beach simply for that sand-between-the-toes feeling.
The Team Canada tandem opens play this week at the SWATCH FIVB beach volleyball under-19 world championships in The Hague, Netherlands intent on leaving their mark in the sand.
“I expect to do well. We want to win some games,” said Whitaker, 18, who is making her debut in the event.
The Sharon resident and Facca of Aurora won a 14-team event earlier this year to claim Canada’s lone berth in the tournament.
“I don’t want to lose and say it was a good experience.”
It is the second year Facca has qualified for the under-19 tournament. Last year in Poland, she and partner Amanda Cowdrey were the second Canadian entry and narrowly missed reaching the main draw.
This time, the 17-year-old Facca and Whitaker, longtime teammates in the Aurora Storm Volleyball Club, start in the main draw and will try to advance from the 24-team pool to the round of 16.
Facca’s experience from last year could be a significant factor.
“We weren’t really prepared that well,” said Facca, a co-winner of the Aurora High School female athlete of the year award. “The tournament was earlier in the year and we didn’t really play that much together.
“Caleigh and I have been together since we were 13, so we know each other well. That means we’ve been able to work on strategy and improving weaknesses in our game.”
Facca has accepted a volleyball scholarship to attend Bowling Green State University in Ohio in August. Whitaker, the female athlete of the year at Sacred Heart Catholic High School in Newmarket, will attend the University of Western Ontario and suit up for the Mustangs.
To prepare for the world championships, which run until Sunday, the pair has played in under-21 and adult tournaments on the Ontario Volleyball Association circuit this summer.
Facca has already offered her recollections of the 2007 event to her partner.
“I thought they’d all be six-foot-three, but they weren’t,” Facca recalled of the opposition. “They are just completely consistent and didn’t make errors. So that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. They’re not that much better — we can definitely compete with them.”
The familiarity of having been Storm teammates for five years can’t hurt, either.
“I think we have lots of chemistry, but you never know if other teams have played that much together, too,” Whitaker said.
The experience last year in Poland was the first under the lively conditions typically associated with big-time volleyball.
“It was just really professional,” Facca recalled. “It felt like playing on the FIVB Tour or the Olympics.”