Spartans set for Dino attack
A date with the Dinos stands in the way of the Trinity Western Spartans advancing to the Canada West final four championships.
The women’s volleyball team earned a split with the Alberta Pandas in Edmonton to finish the regular season with a 19-3 record and the second seed in the playoffs.
They host the Calgary Dinos (11-11) in a best-of-three quarter-final series tonight (Thursday), Feb. 15, and if necessary, Feb. 16 at the Langley Events Centre. The Spartans, ranked second in the country, went a perfect 11-0 at home.
TWU goes into the playoffs on a high winning in five sets on Saturday after dropping a four-set match to Alberta on Friday.
“It was a really exciting match and I thought the girls did a great job of rebounding from yesterday,” said coach Ryan Hofer.
A big key in the win was the play of setter Kelci French, who finished with 46 assists.
“Her locations and decisions really brought a lot to the floor and made the players around her better,” Hofer said.
“Alberta runs a solid offence with experienced attackers so it was important that our servers put pressure on them. Our middles also had a significant impact on the game.”
In Saturday’s five-setter, Alberta won the first and third sets 25-20 and 25-22 while the Spartans took sets two and four, 29-27 and 25-21, respectively. The decisive fifth set went in favour of the visitors 15-12.
Amber Brown and Carly Hamilton had 14 kills apiece while Amy Ott aded a dozen and Alician Perrin chipped in with 11. Hamilton and Brown were also lethal from the service line with five and four aces, respectively.
In Friday’s match, Alberta won 3-1 (25-16,26-24,20-25,25-16) to end the Spartans eight-game win streak.
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The Spartans won both matches against Calgary during the regular season.
The matches are at 6 p.m. for games one and two, and if necessary, 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
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