The Element Panthers Volleyball Club will be welcoming eight teams into town this weekend for their 16-under tournament at the SIAST Palliser gym.  The tournament will feature the Element 15-under and 16-under teams as well as eight out-of-town teams.

Head coach Lewie Bell says they should get some good games out of the teams coming in, “Looking at the draw, I see that the top 16-under teams aren't here, but we do have the teams that are running fifth to tenth in the league right now.”

For the 15-under team – which Bell coaches – they're coming off a third place finish at the Sask Cup #2 last weekend in Saskatoon and will be moving up an age group to compete against some better competition this weekend.

“We're a young team and if we make the playoffs, that would be great for us, it would give us a couple extra games and some extra practice time,” said Bell.

“We had a long weekend last weekend with the Sask Cup and we didn't get all the players into games, so I would like to use this tournament to take a look at everybody and see how they're playing, so I can watch them and see how they're performing and improving as a team.”

The 16-under team on the other hand will be going in with some higher expectations as they host the tournament.

“I know talking to Chantelle (Rouault, the 16-under coach), she does plan on making the top-3 in her pool, so that's their goal,” explained Bell.  “They're preparing for provincials, so they will be going with their starting line-up and trying to do as well as they can do.”

The tournament features two pools of five teams with the top three advancing out of the two-set round robin games to the playoff round with best-of-three set games.  All the action starts at 8:30am on Saturday with the final happening at 7:00pm.