Faith Christensen
Andrew Snucins
3
Winner MRU Cougars MRU 0-0,0-0
2
TRU WolfPack TRU 0-0,0-0
Winner
MRU Cougars MRU
0-0,0-0
3
Final
2
TRU WolfPack TRU
0-0,0-0
Set Scores
Team 1 2 3 4 5 F
MRU Cougars MRU 25 14 31 20 15 (3)
TRU WolfPack TRU 19 25 29 25 9 (2)

Game Recap: Women's Volleyball | | TRU WolfPack, Sydney Sanghara

WolfPack fall short of sweep in five set battle with Cougars

QUICK FIRE
  • After five thrilling sets Saturday afternoon in the TCC, the Thompson Rivers WolfPack women's volleyball team could not complete the weekend sweep of the Mount Royal Cougars who took the second match up of the weekend by a score of 3-2 (25-19, 14-25, 31-29, 20-25, 15-9).
 
DIFFERENCE MAKERS
  • Rida Erlalelitepe led the 'Pack with a game-high 13 kills to go along with her seven digs and trio of serving aces. Maria Dancheva added 12 kills, five blocking assists and four digs to the WolfPack scoresheet. The outside hitter from Calgary, Keira Gent had an incredible showing with nine kills, nine digs and a pair of serving aces. Hadley Schmidt tallied 24 assists and a trio of aces.
  • Emma Boyd led the scoring for the Cougars with 11 kills, she also tallied four blocking assists and a solo block. Sydney Scatcherd added 14 digs, 10 kills and a pair of aces to the Cougars scoresheet. Bronwynn Davies-Neira had 10 kills, nine digs and three block assists. Alexa Herrod was the ultimate playmaker with 40 assists, five blocking assists and a pair of aces.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
  • The WolfPack started slowly as the visitors controlled play in the opening set. Mount Royal had 5 aces in the first frame, two of which came from Mya Morgan and two of from Davies-Neira. One of those Davies-Neira aces ended the frame to give MRU the win 25-19.
  • TRU returned to form in the second set as they hit .370 as a team en route to the 25-14 victory. The 'Pack earned that lead courtesy of six kills in the set from Dancheva, three coming in a row to give TRU the lead 17-9. Erlalelitepe also added four kills and an ace for TRU.
  • The third set was an absolute marathon with the Cougars finally sealing the set 31-29 after nine set points between the two teams. A kill from Grace Coulter gave MRU their first set point at 24-21. TRU rallied to fight those off and earned their first set point thanks to a block from Dancheva and Sasha Haldane. From there the teams traded points all the way to 29-29 before Scatcherd put together a kill and a block back-to-back to take the set for the Cougars,  
  • TRU dominated the fourth frame to send the match to five. Dancheva led the way with three kills as TRU jumped all the way out to a 17-8 advantage. From there TRU was able to see out the set by a score of 25-20.
  • The WolfPack's grit in the fourt set led to a fifth set that started off point-for-point until MRU went on a 3-0 run punctuated by a massive block from Morgan and Davies-Neira. Even after the WolfPack timeouts, they could not stop the Cougars' momentum which led to the visitors taking the fifth set 15-9 with the match point sealed by a block courtesy of Morgan and Herrod.
 
NOTABLE
  • The loss moves Thompson Rivers down to 11-7 and moves Mount Royal up to 12-6 going into the final weekend of the women's volleyball regular season.
  • The WolfPack will enter their final weekend of regular season play battling with the Cougars for fifth place in the conference. MRU ends with 15-3 Alberta while TRU finishes with 2-16 Brandon.
  • Either fifth or sixth place is good enough for the WolfPack to secure a bye through to the Canada West quarter-finals.
  • The loss was the first that TRU has suffered on home court this season. They are 7-1 inside the TCC.

QUOTABLE (WolfPack head coach, Chad Grimm)
  • "We tried a little bit of different lineup to give us a different look. The first set didn't go great but I thought after that we started to get into a groove."
  • "The third set I thought we had more than enough chances to close it out and we didn't. When you don't close out sets you've given the other team life back into the match and they took advantage of it."
  • "Overall on both sides there were a lot of mistakes, I don't think it was a clean game by other team so both sides are going to have to clean that up if they want to make any sort of push in the playoffs."
  • ON THE PLAY OF KEIRA GENT. "I thought Keira did a great job. She hasn't started matches this year but I think with her on the court it spreads our offence out a bit better. She came in, passed the ball well was pretty good offensively as well and served the ball tough."
  • ON THE PLAY OF MARIA DANCHEVA WHO SHIFTED TO THE MIDDLE POSITION "Maria straight out of the middle was great, she's hard to handle there. I thought she adjusted well and had a good match as well."
UP NEXT
  • The WolfPack will remain at home for the final weekend of the regular season when they take on the Brandon University Bobcats in a double header on February 14-15 in the Tournament Capital Centre.
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