Hopes are high for the two participating Yukon teams heading into this year's UBC High School Invitational volleyball tournament.

Both the Grade 11/12 volleyball squads for F.H. Collins Secondary School and Porter Creek Secondary School made the voyage to Vancouver Island today for the annual competition.

"I am just so excited that we have two high school teams going down there," said Al Foster, co-coach for the F.H. Collins group.

"It's not so much a Porter Creek and F.H. trip, it's a Yukon trip. Our volleyball community, while it's strong it's also still pretty small and we have to take care of each other. We are all really essentially friends here and it's just awesome that we can do this."

In preparation for the competition, both teams were set to take on each other Wednesday evening in a friendly tune up game at F.H. Collins

However, as a result of a couple of the Porter Creek's key players catching the flu bug just this week the game was cancelled to give the P.C. team an extra night of rest and relaxation.

Despite his team's absence, Porter Creek coach Sukh Sandhu showed his support by taking part in the practice at F.H. Collins.

He said a full roster of nine players will make the trip and he is hopeful that the health conditions for team stars Luke McDougall and Derrick Anderson will continue to improve for the opening day of the tournament on Friday.

Sandhu, who grew up in B.C.'s Okanagan region, has plenty of experience coaching in the UBC volleyball tournament. This will be his fourth year taking a group from Porter Creek.

Last year's tournament was the most successful for Porter Creek and was highlighted by the team winning three games, including a three-set marathon with a AAA ranked squad from Prince George, B.C.

Porter Creek's 2007 Grade 11 and 12 boy's team was 2-2 after pool competition and the squad finished with a final record of 3-3 at the tournament.

Sandhu said the success of last year's group was a credit to the leadership on the team, which was bolstered with the presence of six Grade 12 players.

Despite this year's team having only three Grade 12 players, Sandhu said he is confident heading into the UBC tournament.

"We have worked with a lot of these guys," he said. "They are athletic and they are super competitive and they have a lot of intrinsic motivation. We are not trying to turn pussy cats into lions, these guys are pretty confident."

He said the only goal at the UBC tournament is for the team to play well.

"I don't even want them to look at the scoreboard," Sandhu said. "The scoreboard will take care of itself if we play well. We will play very strong teams and we might play a very weak team, so you can't look at the result board. You might end up winning handily, but you might have played poorly and then you might have played very well and lost a tight one just depending on the calibre of the team, so I am just worried about playing every point as tough as we can."

Sandhu said it's special that F.H. Collins is sending a team to this year's UBC tournament.

"It should be a lot of fun," he said. "We can cheer each other on."

Porter Creek's Grade 11 and 12 boy's team have been practicing two to three times a week since the beginning of September. Sandhu said the team has devoted a lot of attention with individual skill development.

This will be Foster's first year coaching at the UBC tournament. His goal is for the team to win three games, which Foster said he is confident about being able to, adding one of the team's strengths is the athleticism of the players.

"Their athleticism will carry them a long ways," Foster said. "So when other teams are getting tired maybe these guys will have a little bit more gas in the tank, that's my hope."

Foster said there is something special about this group of players, who won the Yukon championships just two years ago when they were together on the Grade 9 and 10 squad.

"I wasn't even going to coach this year and then I thought to myself ‘Well I have been wanting to get this team back together again for two years now', so myself and (co-coach) Nathan Bingham, we talked over the summer," he said. "We knew this was going to be a pretty special group that we could do something good with them and so we convinced ourselves to come back and have another go."

Foster said this team is the most talented group of players that he has ever coached.

"There is just the right mix of athleticism, dedication and there is a humour amongst these guys," he said.