SPARTANS FALL TO ALBERTA

LANGLEY, B.C. – No. 3-ranked Trinity Western fell 3-0 (18-25, 19-25, 23-25) to No. 1-ranked Alberta on Friday night.
 
The Spartans (11-2) were led by Mathias Elser (Calgary) on the offensive side of the ball while Alberta (12-1) was led by 10 kills from both Jordan Canham and Isaac Heslinga.
 
Overall, the Spartans had a difficult time stopping the Golden Bears offensive ventures, conceding a team hitting percentage of .429 to Alberta. The Spartans hit .260 in the loss.
 
AS IT HAPPENED
The Golden Bears took control of the game early, beating the Spartans 25-18 in the first set. The second set looked very similar to the first as Alberta’s offence continued to hum, leading to a 25-19 set victory for the Golden Bears.
 
The Spartans looked strong in the third set of play, forcing Alberta to close out the game at a 25-23 third set victory.
 
QUOTABLE
Adam Schriemer – Co-Interim Head Coach
“The margins are so slim when you play against a team like Alberta. If you flinch in fundamental skills, you immediately make things hard on yourself. I thought we saw that way too many times tonight – missing some gameplan things, fundamentals, and system things. Those first two sets got out of hand because of that, and we weren’t efficient in the terminal serve.
 
“We got to a level that was high enough in the third set, but Alberta was at that level for all three. We only matched it for one set, so the challenge is getting to our high-end quicker and maintaining that for five sets. It’s going to be hard to do, but the job is playing more efficiently tomorrow.”

 
NOTABLE

• TWU is 31-62 all-time against the Golden Bears. TWU is 7-3 in their last 10 meetings with Alberta.
• TWU defeated the Golden Bears in the 2022 Canada West final to earn their seventh in program history. The Spartans fell to Alberta in the 2022 national final.
• Alberta has won 12 consecutive games since losing their season opener to Saskatchewan.

UP NEXT
The Pandas and Spartans rematch at the Langley Events Centre on Saturday at 7 p.m. PT.

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, as well as women’s and men’s disc golf. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 13 U SPORTS team championships and 32 Canada West team championships.

-TW-