LANGLEY, B.C. – Trinity Western earned a 3-0 (25-14, 25-21, 25-18) win over Thompson Rivers Saturday at the Langley Events Centre to complete a weekend sweep of the visiting WolfPack.
The Spartans improved to 2-0 in the regular season and are now 11-0, including preseason against Canada West competition so far this fall.
AS IT HAPPENED
The first set was all Spartans, as TWU hit .333 (10-3-21) compared to TRU’s -.091 (6-8-22) on their way to an 11-point win. Howe and Elser had three kills each while Napolitano led the WolfPack with two kills. TWU also had six blocks and three ace in the set.
TRU fired back in the second set, hanging with the home side throughout much of the set before TWU pulled away down the stretch. Howe added another three kills, while Jordan Schnitzer (Surrey, B.C.) and Brodie Hofer (Langley) also got in on the offence with three kills apiece. The WolfPack’s Napolitano had four more kills as TRU’s offence hit .421 (10-2-19) while TWU hit .391 (13-4-23).
The Spartans closed out the match in the third set. The third set had TWU hitting for .357 (14-4-28), while holding TRU to .048 (7-6-21) as the Spartans took the final set 25-18. The WolfPack looked like they were going to extend the Spartans as TRU only trailed 14-13 midway through the set. But the Spartans raised their level to outscore the WolfPack 11-5 down the stretch to take home the 3-0 victory.
QUOTABLE TWU Head Coach Ben Josephson
“As always in Canada West the second night is always harder to win. They’ve seen what we do and they’ve found different ways to deal with it. They handled our serve way better tonight, so we didn’t have as many free points. They spiked way better and their second set efficiency was really high and they took care of the ball, which kept the game really competitive. So give credit to them, they adjusted a lot of the things that we got away with yesterday and forced us to play longer rallies.”
“I loved the way our ball control held up. We had lots of recycles and lots of opportunities. We talked about how hard it is to beat a team twice and it was a combination of us losing a bit of the edge we had in the first four or five sets of the weekend and our opponents played way, way better on the second night, so it was a way more competitive game.”
UP NEXT
TWU will now have two weeks off from Canada West competition before returning to host UBC Nov. 26-27 at the Langley Events Centre.
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. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.