The calendar year did not start the way the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack women's volleyball team would have liked.
The eighth ranked team in the nation were upset in straight sets by the host University of Winnipeg Wesmen at the Duckworth Center on Friday night (Jan 3)
The scores were 25-19, 25-21, 25-22.
 
Thompson Rivers falls to 9-4 on the year while Winnipeg improves to 6-7.

The Wesmen were led by Kalena Schulz with 14 kills and 12 digs.  Emma Parker had 10 kills, two assists and 15 assists.  Rylie Dickson had 37 assists while Ashleigh Laube had eight kills.

The WolfPack got a strong performance from fifth year outside hitter Kendra Finch (North Vancouver, BC).  She had five kills, two service aces and 13 digs.
Avery Pottle (4^th year, outside hitter, Uxbridge, ON) had four kills and two blocks.  Abbey Spratt (4^th year, setter, Calgary, AB) had 19 assists.  Hali Drezet (4^th year, libero, Prince George, BC) added 18 digs while Gabriella Podloski (4^th year, outside hitter, Grande Prairie, AB) had four kills.

WolfPack head coach Chad Grimm stated, " I think we put ourselves in a tough spot right from the get go. We didn't pass the ball very well, made poor choices and and gave away too many free points. I thought Winnipeg played a great match.  They defended well and didn't make the system errors that we did. The compete level was better for us in the third set but we had players that weren't ready to go at the beginning of the match."
He added " We haven't lost two matches in a row all season. If we want to be a good team we need to bounce back and I expect us to do that tomorrow."
 
The two teams will go at it again Saturday night (Jan 4).  After the match, the WolfPack will return home to entertain the University of Manitoba Bisons at the Tournament Capital Centre on Friday January 10^th and Saturday January 11^th.  Saturday January 10^th's match is a 6:45 PM start time.

All of the above matches can be seen on a pay-per-view basis by logging onto Canada West TV.