By Larry Read - TRU Athletics

WolfPack women’s volleyball upset CIS #1 ranked TWU to move closer to playoffs

Feb 13, 2016 | 7:07 AM

KAMLOOPS —The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack women’s volleyball team added another chapter in their story of rebuilding.

The WolfPack got some retribution on the CIS’ number one team-the Trinity Western University Spartans. Playing at the TRU gym on Friday (Feb 12), and knowing their playoff lives hang in the balance, the WolfPack downed the Spartans 3-1. The scores were 25-27, 28-26, 25-23, 27-25.

TRU moves to 12-11 on the year while Trinity Western falls to 18-3 and out of first place in the Canada West as the team they were tied with: UBCO was a winner over MacEwan 3-0 (25-18,25-23,25-20).
“The turning point was at the end of the first set,” said WolfPack head coach Chad Grimm. “They served two balls and we took them. They wound up taking the set. It was one we had a chance to win. We had the top team in the country on the ropes and we lost it—in the past, we would have faded away. Tonight we did not.”

“It is always exciting volleyball when we play in this old gym,” stated Spartans head coach Ryan Hofer. “This reminds us of our old gym. We had a fantastic game tonight. I thought the difference was we didn’t manage the ball as well as we should. We gave them too many opportunities to let them bang away. When you do that with some of the players you have over there we make it hard on ourselves to win. There were a couple of points that I would like to review but you can’t do that.”

The Spartans got to Iuliia Pakhomenko (4th year, outside hitter, Donetsk, Ukraine) early. They constantly double teamed her. So, the WolfPack switched their offense and started to feed Krista Hogewoning (5th year, outside hitter, Delta, BC).

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Hogewoning, who played club or provincial volleyball against many of the Trinity players responded and wound up with 12 kills in 34 chances with 12 digs, a solo block and two block assists. She was named the ‘TRU Bookstore/McDonalds Leader of the Pack Player of the Match.”

“Krista was tremendous for us tonight,’ Grimm explained. “ We all know Iuliia is a great player and teams key on her. Krista made them pay for it tonight. Sometimes you struggle to make teams do that. Iuliia kept swinging though. Offensively she didn’t have her best night but is mentally tough. In that fourth set, she came through with the two winning points for us. Even though she isn’t brilliant every night, I firmly believe she can turn it around and not go away from what she is good at. Sometimes she does that to the point of stubbornness but she was good against UBC last week and tonight she went back and got us the win.”

Pakhomenko wound up with 14 kills in 45 chances with nine digs and four block assists. Katie Woo (4th year, setter, Surrey, BC) had 31 assists. Brianne Rauch (4th year, outside hitter, Kimberley, BC) had seven kills in 14 chances with 10 digs, a solo block and a block assist).

“With the volume that she (Pakhomenko) receives,” said Hofer. “You look at that and she is a key player for them. Knowing she is going to get the ball and stopping her are two completely different things.”
Trinity Western was led by Sophie Carpentier (4th year, outside hitter, Ottawa, ON) who had 25 kills in 53 chances with two service aces, four digs and two block assists. Elizabeth Wendel (4th year, outside hitter, Caronport, SK) had eight kills in 30 chances with four digs and five block assists. Mariel Garcia (5th year, libero, Winnipeg, MB) had 15 digs while Nikki Cornwall (3rd year, setter, Coquitlam, BC) had 50 assists with six digs, a solo block and three block assists.

Grimm said the victory meant a lot to his squad aside from the playoff ramifications. “It meant a lot for us that we could do it. Second of all, our last preseason match this year was against Trinity and they absolutely destroyed us. I think more than the standings we needed to prove to ourselves that we could compete. We needed to come out and fight tough. Last week, we did against UBC after being down 2 sets to none. For us to fight back after losing that first set was a big turning point for sure.”

The two teams will close out the weekend series Saturday afternoon (Feb 13) at 5 pm at the TRU Gym. After the match, The WolfPack will honor their graduating players: Woo, Hogewoning, Rauch and Alyssa Wolf (5th year, libero, South Surrey, BC