By Larry Read
Sports Information Officer--Thompson Rivers University
The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men's volleyball team has closed out a six match home stand with their seventh straight victory. The Pack swept the visiting MacEwan University Griffins Saturday (Nov 24) on the Warner Rentals Court.
The scores at the Tournament Capital Centre were 22-25, 25-19,25-16,25-23. TRU improves to 7-1 while the Griffins 2-8.
Tim Dobbert again led the WolfPack in kills with 21. Max Vriend had 10 kills.
The Griffins took the first set as they got four kills a piece from Jordan Peters and Max Vriend. TRU got five kills from Tim Dobbert. The story was eight service errors by Thompson Rivers in that opening stanza.
The second set saw TRU jump out to a 2-0 lead and extended that lead to four (10-6) which prompted MacEwan bench boss Brad Poplawski to call a time out. The momentum Thompson Rivers was reinforced by a service ace to make it 15-7 when Kyle Beheil's offering hit the top of the net and dropped in. The Pack led by eight at the technical time out (16-8). After the Griffins scored a couple of points to get on a roll, it was squashed by a huge kill by middle Sam Taylor Parks to make it 20-13. Charlie Bringloe had five kills for TRU in the second set, which they won 25-19.
The momentum from that second set victory seemed to propel the Pack as they were up by six early on (14-8). The Griffins battled back and cut the deficit to two before Thompson Rivers added one more to go into the break leading 16-13. They went onto a nine point victory paced by four kills from Dobbert.
The fourth set saw MacEwan take the early lead and then the teams exchange points with TRU leading 16-14. The Griffins emerged from the break on a run, taking advantage of some TRU errors. Down 18-17, WolfPack head coach Pat Hennelly was forced to call a time out to regroup. Both teams committed errors and as soon as TRU went up 20-19, it was MacEwan's turn to call a time out for some refocusing. Tied at 23, the Griffins were called for a double hit setting up set point. With Behiels serving, he delivered an ace to take the set and the match.
The WolfPack and Griffins will close out the pre Christmas portion of their Canada West regular season next weekend (Nov 30-Dec 1).
Thompson Rivers visits the University of Alberta Golden Bears while the Grififns will be at home to the Winnipeg Wesmen. Hennelly stated, " It has been five weeks since we have been on the road. We have to adapt to that and bear down with one week left. It's been exceptional. I think this is our best first half ever. For sure, its been one of our biggest homestands in terms of wins. We got our jobs done at home with three sweeps in a row and that is crucial going into the second half."
All TRU matches—home and away—are webcast on a pay-per-view basis on Canada West TV. The "TRU Bookstore/McDonalds Leader of the Pack Player of the Match" was: Behiels.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:
THEY SAID IT (Post Matc Quotes):
TRU head coach Pat Hennelly:
On the errors: " It was a little bit scrappy. Maybe a little bit of fatigue set in. Overall, I liked the way we came out and established the middle. That was part of our game plan. Really happy to see Kyle (Beheils) go back and hit a couple of hard serves at the end."
Coaches Video Post Game Interview: click here
MacEwan assistant coach Erik Thomassen:
On match: " We went back and took at the video from last night. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. It came down to execution. On any given night, whoever wins the serve/pass game is going to win the match. Tonight we weren't passing good enough, certainly not for this level. Both teams struggled a little bit. We have to be better."
Coaches Video Post Game Interview: click here