One night after winning with relative ease, the Trinity Western Spartans faced a stiffer challenge.
But the end result was still the same as the Spartans women’s volleyball team opened the Canada West season with a pair of victories over the host Saskatchewan Huskies.
The 10th-ranked Spartans won 3-0 (25-12,25-11,25-9)on Friday night and 3-1 (25-19,25-17,25-27,26-24) on Saturday.
The Spartans were led by the duo of outside hitter Amy Leschied and middle Alicia Perrin, who had 16 and 10 kills, respectively, in Saturday’s match.
Setter Chelsea Hudson tallied 33 assists.
Trinity Western finished the night hitting 20.8 per cent, with 52 kills compared to 25 errors on 130 attempts. The Spartans also had 51 digs and six team blocks.
Friday’s season opener was a dominating performance.
“I was proud of how the girls came out to play tonight, we followed the game plan and everybody played very well,” said coach Ryan Hofer.
“We blocked very well and worked hard on defence to keep balls in play and our hitters made good decisions.
“They went after the balls that they could score on and continued the balls that they couldn’t.”
The Spartans used an impressive combination of offence and defence to overpower the Huskies. Trinity Western finished the night hitting at 43.1 per cent on 65 attempts, while recording 13 total blocks. Saskatchewan finished at negative 11.4 per cent hitting on 79 attempts and recorded just one block.
Leschied led the way with 10 kills, four blocks and two aces while outside hitter Chelsea Wand had nine kills, two blocks and four digs.
Perrin chipped in with six kills while hitting at 85.7 per cent and three blocks.
Hudson ran an efficient Spartan attack with 22 set assists and libero Jodi Neufeld led all players with 13 digs.
The Spartans also had seven service aces.
The Spartans are on the road this weekend in Brandon for a pair of matches against the Bobcats (0-2).
