One thing you can say about the upcoming final weekend of the Canada West women's volleyball regular season, it won't be boring. At least as far as the fans of the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack are concerned.
The WolfPack split their two game series in Edmonton against the MacEwan University Griffins. After beating them in five sets on Friday (Feb 7), the Pack were beaten in straight sets by the Griffins on Saturday night (Feb 8).
The scores were 25-20,25-22, 25-19. The WolfPack fall to 16-6 on the season with two matches to go. The Griffins finish at 17-7 and sit in third place in the Canada West. They will await to see what happens next weekend as the final two berths for opening round hosting duties will be decided.
This loss also broke a streak for the WolfPack. Until this night, Thompson Rivers had yet to lose on a Saturday night.
Avery Pottle led TRU with eight kills, while Savenchuk and
Kseniya Kocyigit had seven apiece. But the WolfPack were outblocked 10-5 and had a combined hitting percentage of .096 to MacEwan's .216.
"We need to be better," said TRU head coach
Chad Grimm. "I think they came out more determined than we did. I thought we let some things slide. I didn't think our discipline was good early in the match. We gave up some free points with some sloppiness in our blocking defence. And when you give up a couple free points to a good team it puts you under the gun.
"We seemed to be playing from behind the whole match. They would go out to a lead, we would close the gap or even get a little bit ahead, but that takes a lot of energy out of you to constantly be that team that's chasing. It obviously caught up to us."
He added " We lost the serve/receive battle which is obviously crucial. We put a lot of pressure on our outside hitters. You can see when we have a night when we hit 9 per cent as a team, it makes it very difficult to win against a quality team like MacEwan. I thought we struggled at the start of sets. We put outselves in a bit of a hole. I thought it was a result of undisciplined 'Block D". Giving them (the opposition) free points make their job pretty easy. We have to really make a push to come back. We did. We came back in every set to a point where we were tied or very close or took the lead. That becomes very difficult to do over and over again. We shot ourselves in the foot in that sense."
"I think the chances are really high we'll see (MacEwan) here or at our place," said Grimm. "Obviously, we have Trinity – the No. 1 team in the conference and the country. So that will be a really good test.
"We're going to have to have two focused nights in a row, which is what you have to do in playoffs, so it's good prep for us going into a playoff series potentially back here."
Should the WolfPack win one to finish tied with the Griffins in the standings, the sets-won, sets-lost tiebreaker would be employed to determine what would likely be the 4-5 playoff match. Unlike a year ago, however, when MacEwan was burned by it to miss the playoffs on the wrong end of a three-way tie, their waiting game is much more comfortable this time.
Game Leaders
| TRU - Leaders |
|
| Kills |
Avery Pottle (8), Olga Savenchuk (7), Kseniya Kocyigit (7) |
| Aces |
Anastasiia Muzyka (2), Kendra Finch (1), Abby Spratt (1) |
| Blocks |
Avery Pottle (3), Hayley McNaught (2), Kseniya Kocyigit (2) |
| Assists |
Abby Spratt (21), Anastasiia Muzyka (6), Hali Drezet (3) |
| Digs |
Olga Savenchuk (10), Katie Ludvig (10), Kendra Finch (9) |
| GMU - Leaders |
|
| Kills |
McKenna Stevenson (11), Lauren Holmes (11), Carly Weber (9) |
| Aces |
Haley Gilfillan (2), Lauren Holmes (2), Kylie Schubert (1) |
| Blocks |
Haley Gilfillan (6), McKenna Stevenson (4), Lauren Holmes (4) |
| Assists |
Kylie Schubert (31), Rachel Jorvina (4), Hailey Cornelis (1) |
| Digs |
Rachel Jorvina (17), Hailey Cornelis (13), Lauren Holmes (10) |
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 lone fifth year player:
Kendra Finch (outside hitter, North Vancouver, BC).
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 University Griffins Sports Information)
