Back-to-back 3-1 victories have moved the Trinity Western Spartans to the Canada West semifinals.
The men’s volleyball team was hosting the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in the best-of-three quarter-final series at the Langley Events Centre, winning 2-0.
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The No. 1 ranked Spartans had a distinct advantage in every statistical category, with the hitting especially lopsided.
The 10th-ranked WolfPack hit .153 in Friday’s match while TWU was an impressive .476 in winning 3-1 (25-14,29-31,25-12,25-23).
“Thompson Rivers was unrelenting, they didn’t slow down. We were up 8-4 in the second and they ended up stealing that set, we were up 18-13 in the fourth and they came back on that too,” said TWU coach Ben Josephson.
“Again, that’s a credit to how tough their team is, how much (TRU coach) Pat (Hennelly) has prepared them for this weekend.”
First-year Jesse Elser led the Spartans in kills with 18 and a .615 attack percentage while Jackson Howe led in blocks with seven and a .727 attack percentage. Fifth-year Adam Schriemer had 44 assists, while the team finished with a .476 attack percentage.
In game one on Thursday, the teams split the first two sets with TWU winning 26-24 and the WolfPack evening the match at one with a 25-22 win. The Spartans took the third and fourth sets by 25-20 and 25-21 scores, respectively.
Eric Loeppky led the attack with 20 kills while Carter Bergen had 13 digs and Schriemer had another 41 assists to go along with 10 digs.
The Spartans will host the winner of the Brandon-Winnipeg series in the Canada West semifinals. The best-of-three series runs March 1 to 3 at the LEC.
gary ahuja
