Comox Valley athletes Hilary Graham and Rian Plante continue to put the charge in the Camosun Chargers university volleyball teams.
The Chargers teams closed the first half of the PacWest season with an exciting sweep over the UFV Cascades in their Nov. 28-29 road series weekend. While the women went the distance in both contests to land 10-2 (#2) in the mid-season standings, the men blasted by their opponents in straight sets to sit 9-3 (#3).
Despite having different plans for the break, both teams have their sights set on the PacWest Provincial Championships which they host Feb. 26-28, 2015.
In women’s action, the Chargers had to pull out all the stops to get past the very tough and athletic Cascades, with both matches going to five (Friday 25-23, 20-25, 10-25, 28-26, 15-7; Saturday 25-11, 18-25, 26-24, 24-26, 15-10). Fifth-year vet Graham (Courtenay) led the women’s Chargers to victory Friday with 15 points (12 kills, 2 aces, 1 block).
On the men’s side, the Chargers pulled off a pair of back-to-back, straight-set wins over UFV (Friday 30-28, 25-23, 25-23; Saturday 25-19, 25-19, 25-22) with second-year right side Plante (Comox) earning PacWest Athlete of the Week. Over the weekend, Plante contributed a total of 26 kills (23 kills, 3 blocks) and 12 digs to represent his finest PacWest performance.
While conference competition breaks for exams and winter holidays, both teams are aiming to be at their peak when they host the PacWest Provincial Championships.
“We’re not unlike others as we undergo a process with the sole intention of reaching optimal performance levels at the PacWest championships,” states women’s coach Dahl. “Our records suggest that we’re off to a great start and perhaps have an advantage over our opposition, so one of our challenges is to not only maintain that gap, but to continue to develop at a rate greater than our opposition.”
Currently third in the PacWest standings, the Chargers men are looking to advance and establish themselves as the team to beat during the playoffs.
“We’d like to secure one of the two first-round byes at the end of league play, but to do that we will have to be solid in our execution on offence, blocking, back row defence and from the service line,” comments coach Parkinson.
– Camosun Chargers
