Basso bids for berth on national volleyball team

Kelowna Daily Courier Staff


2010-05-07





She admits her body is sore, but Alex Basso‘s spirit is certainly willing to continue tryouts for the senior national women‘s volleyball team.
The 2009-10 Canadian Colleges‘ Athletic Association female athlete of the year - while playing for the UBC Okanagan Heat women‘s volleyball team - is in Winnipeg at Team Canada‘s volleyball selection camp.
Basso, who led the Heat to a national champ-ionship earlier this year, received her first taste of the national team program when she attended the high performance camp earlier this week. She was invited to stay for the national team selection camp.
"The three days of open camp were quite intense and my body is sore," said Basso. "We did a bunch of testing and then a lot of hitting and blocking, so I‘m feeling it. I‘m not used to six-hours-a-day training, and because our season ended almost two months ago, this was a bit shock to the system.
"But Team Canada head coach Arnd Ludwig asked me to stay for the senior tryout camp, so I guess I‘m not heading home to Kelowna quite yet," added the Immaculata High School graduate, who, as a power hitter, completed her second season with the back-to- back national champions at UBCO.
"Alex is making us very proud," said Heat head coach Steve Manuel. "For her to be doing this well is a testament to the quality of the Heat program."
Basso was one of only two CCAA athletes invited to the open high performance camp and the only one to go on to the senior camp. All other athletes are either top CIS players or professional athletes.
Among the latter are Kelowna‘s Marisa Field and Brittany Page of Vernon, who roomed and played pro volleyball in Spain last season.
Field, a KSS grad, played two years at UBCO before moving on to the UBC Thunderbirds where she won a pair of Canadian Interuniversity Sport championships.
"It‘s very rewarding to see how Marisa continued to develop from the time she arrived to play for us until now," said Manuel, who also had the opportunity to coach Page (W.L. Seaton) in the Kelowna Volleyball Club.
If selected for the national team, athletes will remain in Winnipeg to train for the summer and will take part in several major competitions.