After being challenged by their head coach, the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack women's volleyball team responded on Saturday night (Jan 4) in Winnipeg.
After being swept in three straight sets on Friday (Jan 3) in Canada West play, TRU head coach
Chad Grimm said if his team wanted to be a contender, they would have to continue to bounce back after a loss.
They did so on Saturday as they rallied from a 1-0 deficit to defeat the host Winnipeg Wesmen at the Duckworth Centre 3-1. The scores were 22-25,25-13,25-20, 25-15.
The victory moves Thompson Rivers to 10-4 on the year. Winnipeg saw their two match winning streak snapped and fall to 6-8 on the campaign.
TRU was led by
Olga Savenchuk (2
nd year, outside hitter, Donetsk, Ukraine) and
Anastasiia Muzyka (3
rd year, setter, Poltawa, Ukraine). Savenchuk, a Canada West all-star in 2018-19 had 12 kills and four assists. Muzyka had 32 assists, 11 digs and six service aces.
Kendra Finch (5
th year, outside hitter, North Vancouver, BC) had 12 kills and 16 digs for the WolfPack.
Katie Ludvig (3
rd year, libero, Kamloops, BC) contributed 14 digs. Gabriela Podloski (4
th year outside hitter, Grande Prairie, AB) had seven kills and two service aces while
Avery Pottle (4
th year, outside hitter, Uxbridge, ON) had five blocks.
Winnipeg was led by Emma Parker with 13 kills. Kalena Schultz had 10 kills, 11 digs, two blocks and two service aces while Ashleigh Laube had 14 digs and two service aces. Madison Fyvie had 16 digs and three assists. Rylie Dickson contributed 36 assists for the Wesmen.
Said head coach
Chad Grimm afterwards, " I don't think anyone was satisfied with their performance yesterday. To see someone like Olga who didn't have a good outing yesterday to be all business in serve and pass. She worked on some technical things and said "I will do better tonight coach" and she was. When you have experienced players like that know how to win and how to prepare to win, it was nice that she did that tonight."
Grimm thought the team served better than Friday. " They passed too good yesterday for us to win. I thought we took more of a concerted effort today. I think when we serve the ball tough, we can use our physicality and we can block. When they are in system all the time, that makes it tough on us. Our serving led to our blocking and improved defense."
TRU will return home to entertain the University of Manitoba Bisons next weekend (Jan 10-11) at the Tournament Capital Centre. Match time on Friday, Jan 10 th will be 6:45 pm.