-The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men's volleyball team are on quite a roll heading into the final weekend of the Canada West regular season.
Pat Hennelly and his charges have won their last four matches following a weekend sweep over the MacEwan Griffins in Edmonton. After taking the Griffins in five on Friday (Feb 7), the Pack came back from a first set deficit to take MacEwan for a second straight night. This time it was in four sets. The scores were 19-25,25-21,25-21,25-20.
Thompson Rivers moves to 7-13 on the year while the Griffins finish the year at 2-10. They have a bye next week.
With the win, TRU improves to 7-13 and keeps their playoff hopes alive … at least mathematically. They face a daunting uphill task to sneak into the top eight, though, needing to win at least one, and likely two, against U SPORTS No. 1 Trinity Western in their final weekend Feb. 14-15 to knock Mount Royal University (8-12) out of eighth.
"We have a chip and a chair, I guess," said TRU head coach
Pat Hennelly. "The disappointing thing for us is going through the Mount Royal, Winnipeg stretch – we lost all four. I'm always a guy who (believes) in mathematical possibilities, but no one really gives you favours in our league. We have to earn it the hard way now. It would have been nice for us to get one of these wins in the middle of the first semester when we started losing our confidence.
"We're certainly disappointed with where we are and really how we lost some of those crucial games."
On Saturday, at least, Hennelly's team controlled the majority of the match. Outside of the first set, which MacEwan clinched on
Jordan Peters' blast off the block from the left side, the Griffins were chasing the rest of the way.
Max Vriend led the Griffins with a game-high 22 kills and 25.0 points in the final match of his Canada West career and moves into the top-20 in the conference in career kills with 1,037 and into 14
th in career points with 1,311.0. He also finishes 12
th in career blocks with 327.
Vriend also increased his lead atop the conference kills list for 2019-20, finishing with 317 – 48 better than Winnipeg's Daniel Thiessen, who has one more weekend of play left – and also leads Canada West in kills per set with a 4.17 average.
TRU's
Sam Taylor Parks increased his fifth-place career blocks total to 394 after five more on Saturday night to pace the WolfPack.
Nimo Benne added 17 kills on a .393 hitting percentage.
"He's been great," said Hennelly of Parks. "He's very similar to Max – he was on the all-rookie team in his first year and he gets to be a five-year starter. It's very rare in our league to get that five-year start and he's been steadily piling up points and blocks.
"Sam's been excellent for our program. He's the best blocker we've ever had 15 years in the league."
Game Leaders
| TRU - Leaders |
|
| Kills |
Nimo Benne (17), Joshua Mullaney (9), Sam Taylor Parks (9) |
| Aces |
Kyle Behiels (3), Sam Taylor Parks (2), Anton Napolitano (2) |
| Blocks |
Sam Taylor Parks (5), Kyle Behiels (4), Joshua Mullaney (4) |
| Assists |
Samuel Elgert (31), Anton Napolitano (9), Landon Currie (3) |
| Digs |
Nimo Benne (6), Kobby Nyarko (5), Samuel Elgert (5) |
| GMU - Leaders |
|
| Kills |
Max Vriend (22), Jordan Peters (10), Jefferson Morrow (7) |
| Aces |
Jonathan Mohler (2), Max Vriend (2), Mark Alexander (2) |
| Blocks |
Ethan Happer (2), Jefferson Morrow (2), Max Vriend (2) |
| Assists |
Jonathan Mohler (36), Thomas Watchman (4), Jordan Peters (1) |
| Digs |
David Morgan (8), Jonathan Mohler (6), Jordan Peters (3) |
The matches next weekend (Feb 14-15) against the Spartans will be played on the Champ court at the Tournament Capital Centre. On Friday night, it will be the #I believe you awareness night. This is the campaign both WolfPack teams are involved with. It brings attention to victims of sexual harassment and abuse. On Saturday (Feb 15), the WolfPack will honor their graduating players: Josh Mullaney (Calgary, AB),
Sam Taylor Parks (Kelowna, BC),
Kyle Behiels (Edmonton, AB) and
Charlie Bringloe (Waterloo, ON) before the match.
Friday's match has a 5 PM PDT start time with Saturday's match going at 6:45 PM PDT.
These matches can been seen on a pay per view basis on Canada West TV presented by Co-op by accessing:
https://cw.yaretv.com/. Results will be available on the WolfPack social media platforms and their website
www.goWolfPack.ca.
James Matthews and former WolfPack setter Katie Woo will handle the play by play and commentary with CFJC TV's Dylana Milobar acting as the in game host.
(With Assistance from MacEwan Griffins Sports Information)
