The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack find themselves going to a third and deciding match in their Canada West women's volleyball quarterfinal. The University of Alberta Pandas squared the series on Saturday (Feb 23).

The Pandas beat the WolfPack 3-0 at the Saville Centre in game two. The scores were 25-20,25-22,25-16.
Thompson Rivers won the series opener Friday night (Feb 22) in five sets.

The third and deciding series will be played tomorrow (Sunday Feb 24) at Noon  PDT.  The winner will advance to the Canada West semifinals.

 SYNOPSIS

The WolfPack had some difficulty with their passing and attack close to the net in this match as the Pandas picked up their overall game as they faced elimination.  The #3 ranked Pandas have lost only three times on their home court this year, two of those defeats came at the hands of Thompson Rivers.

Olga Savenchuk  (1^st year, outside hitter, Donetsk, Ukraine) led the offense for TRU with 11 kills.   Kendra Finch (4^th year, outside hitter, North Vancouver, BC) added 7.   Anastasiia Muzyka (2^nd year, setter, Poltawa, Ukraine) had 25 assists for TRU.

Alberta was led by Julia Zonneveld and Kory White with 10 kills a piece.

The Pack had a kill per cent of .120 for the contest while Alberta was .220.  TRU outdug the Pandas 58-54.  TRU had 15 attack errors to Alberta's 13  while the Pandas had more service errors than the WolfPack (15-11).
 
SCORES:
ALBERTA:     25   25   25   ---3
TRU:              20   22   16   ---1    
 
KEY STATS:
 
TRU
Olga Savenchuk :11 kills in 27 swings, 9 digs, 3 block assists, 1 service ace
Kendra Finch: 7 kills in 30 opportunities, 8 digs
Anastasiia Muzyka: 25 assists, 17 digs, 3 service aces, 1 block assist
 
ALBERTA:
Kory White:  10 kills in 30 chances, 4 digs, 1 block assist
Julia Zonneveld : 10 kills in 30 attempts, 3 service aces, 3 block assists, 15 digs
Jess Stroud: 7 kills in 17 opportunities, 2 digs, 1 block assist
Mariah Walsh: 34 assists, 8 digs
 
THEY SAID IT! (post match quotes):

TRU head coach Chad Grimm

On  match: " I thought the first two sets were in it. We really didn't get over the hump. We didn't take are of the ball well enough out of system.  We had a little bit of hesitation in our game. Credit to Alberta, they started off not 100 per cent confident. But as the match wore on, they started to pick up the level and they played well. We gave them too many free points to be able to compete.  Definitely something we have to look at and take it as a learning experience. A lot of these girls haven't been on the floor in a playoff environment where the results matter. Good experience for them. Hopefully tomorrow we can come out and relax and push a tough Alberta team on their own floor."

UP NEXT:

The two teams will play again tomorrow (Sun Feb 24^th) in a third and deciding match.  Match time is at 1pm MDT. The match can be viewed on a pay per view basis on www.canadawesttv.com.