By CLAUDE SCILLEY

Like the sales person who works to pique the interest of the potential customer, the Sydenham Golden Eagles twice captured the attention of the Regiopolis Notre Dame Panthers Monday night.

Neither time, however, could they close the deal.

As a result, the Panthers left the Queen’s Athletics and Recreation Centre with the Kingston Area Secondary Schools Athletic Association senior girls volleyball championship for the fourth year in a row.

Regi, undefeated through 11 regular-season and three playoff matches, prevailed 3-0 (27-25, 26-24, 25-16). The Panthers will host L’Escale of Rockland in a challenge contest for the EOSSAA triple-A championship, Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The Eagles will now advance and play for the double-A EOSSA championship, in a tournament Sydenham will host on Thursday.

In each of the first two sets Monday night Regi found itself trailing 22-21.

“We called a timeout, there were missed serves after each one of those timeouts, and that was huge,” Panthers coach Pat Farrell said. “We got the ball back and we started to grab momentum from there.

“If (Sydenham) wins one of these first two sets, it gives them a little bit of life, but we stayed on top of them and that was key.”

If there’s anything about this particular team that distinguishes it from others Farrell has coached at Regi, he said it would be its closeness.

“We have excellent leadership,” he said. “We had a lot of new kids come in, Grade 11s, but our two captains, Jasmine Zahra and Norah Lloyd-Ellis, really took them under their wings. We’ve got two players in Grade 10 and they were really nervous coming to play on the team but our older veterans really took over and made everybody feel comfortable.

“That’s the difference. We don’t have people on the bench complaining about playing time. It’s team first.”

That manifests itself, Farrell said, in a certain kind of resilience.

“The older I get as a coach, the more I see the mental side of the game,” he said, “and that’s something where we’ve been really, really strong, in terms of when we fall behind. We fell behind in both the first two sets but the girls hung right in there, didn’t give up, got the momentum.

“Volleyball’s a big momentum game. We were able to grab back the momentum.”

Farrell noted the play of a couple of his players: Logan Rook, who came off the bench to play left side in place of the injured Hailey Wolfgram, and setter Annie Kennedy.

“Our Grade 11s have done a really nice job,” he said. “We had a nice setter battle at the first of the year but as the year went on, Annie sort of took over the job, in terms of her athleticism. It was nice when she had two big (plays at the net). It’s nice when the 5-3 player comes out and does that.

“Logan came in and did a wonderful job. That’s not always easy to come in when you’re not the starter and play in a KASSAA championship game.”

Monday’s clash was a match of the league’s two dominant programs. Regi has now won five of the last six senior championships, and Monday’s title was its sixth dating to 2002. In that time, Sydenham, 10-1 in the regular season this year, has won five KASSAA crowns.

In those 14 years, only three others schools won a county title, and none of them did it more than once.