The Trinity Western Spartans national championship dreams came to an end in the quarter-finals.
The Spartans women’s volleyball team fell 3-1 to the Dalhousie Tigers on Thursday at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport in Regina.
Trinity Western was the third seed while the Tigers were No. 6 in the rematch of the 2013 quarter-finals, which the Spartans won on their way to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport bronze medal.
“You work hard to be able to be here and play with all your heart and it’s tough to lose like this,” said Spartans coach Ryan Hofer.
“I feel for this team, I feel for the senior players who have given a lot to this program.”
“We have a tough group of girls who have dealt with a lot of stuff this year and I’m proud of them. We’re hurt right now, but I want to believe that we’re going to move on and build from this.”
Dalhousie won the first set 25-21 but the Spartans took the second 25-15.
But the final two sets both went to the Tigers 25-19 and 25-23.
“I think we struggled a bit with receiving their serve and that got us into trouble,” Hofer said.
“We allowed them to go on runs and we had a hard time getting out of certain rotations and they did a good job of taking advantage of that.”
Sophie Carpentier led the Spartans with 19 kills while Alicia Perrin had 10. Carpentier also had a dozen digs. Casie Gano led the team with nine blocks.
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At the CIS all-Canadian banquet on Feb. 26, Carpentier was named a first team all-star.
She finished the season second in the country at 4.14 kills per set and points with 4.96 per set.
