The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack  kicked off their final road trip of the 2019-20 Canada West men's volleyball season in dramatic fashion.

The WolfPack went into the David Atkinson gym at MacEwan University and battled the hometown Griffins in five sets. The Pack emerged victorious 23-25,27-25,25-19,23-25,16-14.
The victory moves the WolfPack to  6-13 as they extended their winning streak to three.  MacEwan have now dropped nine matches in a row.

The match saw MacEwan's Max Vreind  becoming the 24^th player in Canada West men's volleyball history to reach 1,000 career kills.

MacEwan head coach Brad Poplawski called a timeout as his teammates and brother Eric – an honorary assistant coach on the Griffins – swarmed the fifth-year senior in celebration as a standing ovation from the David Atkinson Gym faithful rained down on them.

"It was pretty cool," said Vriend, who received an autographed volleyball from his teammates following the game. "It caught me off guard, for sure. It's cool to share that with (my teammates) because they were the ones that got me there."

"The year obviously hasn't gone close to what we expected, so it's a long year for the guys, but as a coach you can't be disappointed in that effort tonight," said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski.
"To me, the turning point was after Max's (celebration), you have to win that set, you have to find a way. And we weren't able to celebrate and then get back to business. I think that's kind of been with us this whole year, if things go off the rails, we can't get it back on track quick enough."

The Griffins were up 1-0 in the match and after Vriend recorded his 11^th kill of the night to reach the elite milestone, they were up 22-18 in the second set. TRU rallied back to win it 27-25 and took the wind out of their sails.
"To me, the turning point was after Max's (celebration), you have to win that set, you have to find a way. And we weren't able to celebrate and then get back to business. I think that's kind of been with us this whole year, if things go off the rails, we can't get it back on track quick enough."
The Griffins were up 1-0 in the match and after Vriend recorded his 11^th kill of the night to reach the elite milestone, they were up 22-18 in the second set. TRU rallied back to win it 27-25 and took the wind out of their sails.

"Not a lot of people have accomplished that feat and I wanted to recognize it," said Poplawski. "We were in a good spot in that set at 22-18. I just wish we could have closed it out after. That's disappointing, but putting that aside … when you think Max, in his first three years, was predominantly a middle, I think that makes the accomplishment a little bit more special.

"You want a team of Max Vriends – a guy that grinds and works that hard. I'm really happy for him, really proud of him. That was a special moment and something he'll definitely remember."
Vriend finished with a match-high 26 kills on 66 swings for the Griffins, several of them of the floor-denting variety, as he stretched his Canada West-leading total to 295 for the season.

"We know what Max is like," said TRU head coach Pat Hennelly. "I'm not surprised he's at 1,000 kills. He gave us everything we could handle. We knew they weren't happy about last weekend and that's what I expected.

"For our guys, we haven't had great Fridays on the road, so I was happy we stayed in there. Full value to Grant MacEwan because they gave us all we could handle."

MacEwan battled back to force a fifth set and even had a match point, up 15-14 in the fifth set, before the WolfPack rallied to win.

TRU was led by their own budding star in first year Nimo Benne, who had 24 kills and is third in the conference with 234 for the season.

"He's got a big arm and sometimes it doesn't even look like he's going to hit the ball hard and it just explodes off his arm," said Hennelly. "People that watched tonight saw two premier guys that are international volleyball players."

The teams will meet in the rematch on Saturday (6:30 p.m., Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
 
 

TRU - Leaders
Kills	Nimo Benne (24), Sam Taylor Parks (13), Joshua Mullaney (12)
Aces	Samuel Elgert (4), Joshua Mullaney (2), Kyle Behiels (1)
Blocks	Charlie Bringloe (6), Sam Taylor Parks (6), Kyle Behiels (3)
Assists	Samuel Elgert (53), Anton Napolitano (6), Landon Currie (4)
Digs	Charlie Bringloe (13), Landon Currie (13), Nimo Benne (10)
GMU - Leaders
Kills	Max Vriend (26), Jordan Peters (9), Jefferson Morrow (7)
Aces	Jonathan Mohler (2), Brody Robinson (1), Jordan Zadrozny ()
Blocks	Ethan Happer (8), Max Vriend (6), Mark Alexander (4)
Assists	Jonathan Mohler (43), Jordan Peters (2), David Morgan (2)
Digs	David Morgan (20), Max Vriend (11), Jordan Peters (10)

 

UP NEXT:
Thompson Rivers will close out the road portion of their Canada West regular season tomorrow in Edmonton against the Griffins.  Match time is 6:45 PM MDT.

The Pack will then return home to prepare for their final home stand—a big one—against the defending U SPORTS champion and the current first place Canada West leaders, the Trinity Western University Spartans on Valentine's Day (Feb 14) and Saturday, February 15^th at the Tournament Capital Centre.

The Valentine's Day game is the WolfPack's annual  # I Believe You" awareness night.  On the Saturday, the team will honor their four graduating players: Kyle Behiels (Edmonton, AB), Sam Taylor Parks (Kelowna, BC)  Joshua Mullaney (Calgary, AB) and Charlie Bringloe (Waterloo, ON).   Match times February 14^th are 5 PM PM PDT and 6:45 PM PDT on the Saturday (Feb 15).

All of the above games 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.
 
(With Assistance from MacEwan University Sports Information)