Posted: Oct 17, 2014
CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos captured their first home win of the season when they defeated the Thompson Rivers WolfPack 3-0 (25-23, 25-22, 25-11) on Oct. 17 at Jack Simpson Gymnasium.
The Dinos now improve to 2-1 on the season while Thompson Rivers drops to 0-3.
"I was really happy with the way we came out," said Dinos head coach Rod Durrant. "As a group we've really been working on sustaining the pressure from the other team. I think we did that with our serving and our defence started to show that we can play really good defence around our block."
Second-year Keith West had a game-high 16 kills and six digs on the night, followed up by Connor Frehlich who followed right behind with 15 kills of his own. He had a game-high nine digs. Setter Jackson Maris recorded a game-high 39 assists.
For the WolfPack, Randy Grundmann led the way with nine kills. Setter Graham Stoliker had 26 assists while libero Matt Krueger added six digs for Thompson Rivers.
"I think our outside hitters did a really good job. Connor and Keith had really good evenings. They played really solid and made good decisions at the net. Jackson set very well to the outsides and that allowed them to have a lot of one on ones."
The first two sets of the match were a battle for both teams. In the first, the Dinos led by three at the technical timeout, but let it slip as the WolfPack found a way to tie it up at 17 with some miscommunication on passing from the Dinos. A tool from Frehlich was the game point allowing the Dinos to lead 1-0 with a 25-23 set win.
In the second, it was another tight match but the Dinos were able to come out on top once again with some fantastic offence from West. In the third, it was no contest as Thompson Rivers looked defeated. They gave up the set 25-11 and the Dinos swept their first match of the season.
"Tomorrow is a reset, it's a new night. They're a good team and they have some injuries right now, but we know they're going to come out and really play scrappy volleyball so we need to match that on our side and execute the simple things from first ball contact to making good decisions.
The Dinos will have a chance to sweep the weekend when they rematch the WolfPack tomorrow at 6:30pm.