LANGLEY, B.C. – Led by first-year Piers de Greeff (Victoria), who had a match-high 21 kills, No. 9 Trinity Western rallied from a set down to beat No. 7 Mount Royal 3-2 (27-25, 22-25, 20-25, 25-18, 15-13) Saturday at the Langley Events Centre.
The win sees the Spartans (6-6) take a weekend split against the Cougars (9-5).
Along with de Greeff, who hit .375, the Spartans were led offensively by Henry Rempel (Swift Current, Sask.), who had 11 kills, and Kaden Schmidt (Mississauga, Ont.), who had eight kills. The middle attack saw the Spartans Jackson Corneil (Surrey, B.C.) collect an errorless seven kills (.500) while Cory Schoenherr had five kills and just one error (.444) to go with a team-high five blocks. Settier Anselm Rein (Erfurt, Germany) had 47 assists and three kills.
Luis Lange had 15 kills and six blocks while hitting .545 to lead MRU. Chris Byan had 12 kills and six blocks.
TWU had a 6-2 edge in aces, but MRU’s block won the battle at the net with a 14-8 advantage.
AS IT HAPPENED
The Spartans opened the night by nabbing their first set of the weekend, outhitting the Cougars .394 to .171. The second set was a bit of a reversal from the first, with MRU hitting .417 and the Spartans hitting .214, as the visitors evened the match.
The Cougars found their rhythm in the third set. MRU didn’t commit a single attacking error and hit a whopping .750 on route to a five-point win.
The Spartans slowed the MRU offence down dramatically in the fourth set, holding the Cougars to a .087 hitting percentage to force a fifth set.
In the final set, MRU jumped out to a 4-2 lead but the Spartans bounced right back and evened the set 4-4. The teams traded points from there until an ace by serving sub Devin Hofsink (Kelowna, B.C.) put TWU ahead 9-7. The Spartans held a lead the rest of the way, with the game ultimately ending on four consecutive serving errors.
QUOTABLE Adam Schriemer – TWU Head Coach
“Before the game we talked about how late in games and in fifth sets, there’s no such thing as clutch. No one is better when pressure hits. The best players are just less worse than their opponents. We did a good job of putting ourselves in opportunities yesterday but we weren’t as efficient as our opponents. So tonight, we wanted the guys to be free to know that they don’t have to play their best when the pressure is on, because no one does. We just needed to trust that we don’t need to play perfect, but we need to find a way to be a little bit better than our opponents and I thought we did that today.
“I thought Piers was incredible again today. We talked about how it’s sometimes nice to win you’re your best player doesn’t play well. I thought Henry wasn’t very clean as a spiker and a server, but he was an incredible leader and he really just empowered the other guys who were playing well to take over the offensive load. Piers did just that and it was really impressive to see him play that well two days in a row.”
NOTABLE
· The five-set match marked the first time TWU has played a fifth set this season.
· The Spartans are 29-8 all-time against Mount Royal.
· The Cougars beat TWU 3-0 (26-24, 30-28, 25-23) on Friday night.
UP NEXT
The Spartans will travel to play Manitoba Jan. 12-13.
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women’s and men’s soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women’s rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men’s rugby and women’s and men’s disc golf. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 14 U SPORTS team championships and 33 Canada West team championships.
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