After coming up short at provincials last year, the Cornerstone Falcons are heading in on a mission this weekend in Preeceville.

The Falcons are taking part in the SHSAA 3A Boys Volleyball Provincial Championship, starting on Friday and are focused on coming away with the title.

“The boys are definitely excited to get up there,” said head coach Lee Behrns. “Our first match is against Oxbow, the top ranked team, so that may be good for us, we'll get our first game jitters out against them and relax for the rest of the round robin.”

Behrns added that he liked the idea of going against the best team right away at provincials to set the tone for the entire weekend.

“Last year in our first game, we played a team that we should have beat, but we came in really nervous and lost, so for us to be able to start with the best and then go from there, hopefully it's one of those ones that we can get momentum rolling for and relax,” he said.

A lot of work has gone into this season for the Falcons and they've been seeing the benefits, making it to the semifinals of the Moose Jaw League playoffs, then winning their conference title and finishing second at regionals last weekend.

After playing at home for the past two weekends, Behrns said the team has been bringing a lot of intensity to their games and he hopes that continues this weekend.

“They've seen what they can happen when they get intense in those tight games,” he said. “Hopefully they can carry that energy into some smaller gyms that will be packed with people. It should be loud and exciting, so hopefully they can keep that energy up.”

With a lot of games in the books already this year, the focus for the Falcons over the past week has been correcting some areas that needed solidifying and just making sure that they're ready to lay on the line this weekend.

“We haven't been stressing too much, we've add a few new plays into the hitting repertoire and then we've also worked a bit on positioning for all the different scenarios that we're going to see,” Behrns said.

Cornerstone will open provincials on Friday against Oxbox at 12:00pm. They also meet Rosthern Junior College at 3:00pm and Island Lake at 6:00pm.

The Falcons will close out the round robin on Saturday against Kipling at 11:00am before the playoff round gets underway in the afternoon. The gold medal game is set for 5:30pm on Saturday.

Click here to follow along throughout the weekend.