Game Information
Dates: Thursday, March. 3 | Friday, March 4 | Saturday, March 5
Time: 8:00 p.m. | 8:00 p.m. | 6:00 p.m.
Location: Langley, BC
Watch Live: Canadawest.tv
KAMLOOPS – With three round robin games on the horizon, many members of the Thompson Rivers WolfPack men’s volleyball team will be in unfamiliar territory this weekend as they get ready to make their Canada West playoff debuts.
After finishing the season with a record of 6-10, good enough for fourth in the West Division, the WolfPack will play in a pool featuring Trinity Western Spartans (15-1, 1st West), Brandon Bobcats (9-9, 2nd East) and Mount Royal Cougars (7-11, 3rd Central).
The WolfPack will face the Spartans first on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. followed by the Bobcats on Friday at 8:00 p.m. and the Cougars on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. with the top two teams from the pool of four advancing to the quarter-finals next weekend.
TRU enter the weekend after putting together a record of 5-8 in the second semester, including picking up a win over the UBC Thunderbirds in the final regular season game of their season.
Trinity Western dominated the West Division all season long and is the top ranked team in the nation. Their lone loss of the season came last weekend against the UBC Okanagan Heat with many of their starters on the bench.
The Bobcats snuck into second place in the East Division on the final weekend of the season. Brandon swept the Manitoba Bisons in the six-straight sets to give them the tie-breaker of sets won/lost over the Saskatchewan Huskies by a tally of 38-39 to 37-39. Other than a skid of four-straight losses to the Huskies on either side of the winter break, the Bobcats were steady all season long.
After starting their season with a record of just 1-5, the Cougars won five games in the second semester including taking a pair off the second-place Calgary Dinos to cement their spot as the third-best team in the Central Division.
TRU has recent history with all three of these teams. The WolfPack lost all four games they played against the Spartans this season. Mount Royal swept the ‘Pack in Calgary back in 2019-20 while the Bobcats handed the ‘Pack a pair of losses in February of the 2018-29 season.
By the Numbers
106 – Graduating athlete Anton Napolitano finished his WolfPack career with 106 aces. That mark is good enough for 14th in Canada West history and just three behind Brad Gunter for the program record.
3 – The veteran Napolitano led the way for the WolfPack in three major categories: kills (137), assists (263) and aces (22).
4.35 – Trinity Western’s Brodie Hofer finished second in the conference in kills-per-set.
2.10 – Defensively, Jens Watt of the Bobcats finished second in the conference with 2.10 digs-per-set.
Athlete’s Take
Fifth-year Setter, Anton Napolitano
On the round robin tournament
“I kind of like the one-and-done, just because there’s so much more pressure on that one game. It’s win or you go home. I personally like it and I like our team, I think we embrace the pressure pretty well so we’ll see if we can execute.”
On what he is saying to the team as one of the few veterans to have played a CW playoff game
“The biggest thing – and we’ve done this all year – is to control the controllables. For the young guys in particular it will be a lot of pressure and nerves but the things we can control is how much we talk to each other, how external we are, how much we celebrate. From a fifth year who has been in the playoffs before, I’m just trying instill that in the young guys, especially when things aren’t going perfectly.”
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