WolfPack men’s volleyball eliminated from playoff contention
KAMLOOPS — It is ‘next year’ time for the Thompson Rivers University men’s volleyball team. The WolfPack’s slim Canada West post season hopes were dashed on Friday night (Feb 12).
Playing at the TRU Gym, the WolfPack lost in straight sets to the Trinity Western University Spartans. The scores were 25-21,25-23,25-19. TRU falls to 10-13 on the year while Trinity is 12-9.
“You come into these matches knowing you have a playoff mentality,” stated Spartans coach Ben Josephson. “You have two teams playing for their playoff lives. It was like a tug of war tonight, slowly you pull the rope to your side. Once it starts going your way you can see the momentum shifting. The hard part for tomorrow is that they will get a chance to reset and come at us hard tomorrow.”
“We were beaten in almost every aspect of the game and I have to give credit to Trinity Western,” said TRU head coach Pat Hennelly. “They served tougher than us through the whole match and passed better than we did. I thought we would we would have a little advantage in that area based on how we played last weekend. It seemed like it wasn’t there for us. Blake Sheerhorn hit some pretty big balls against us and we were down early. We struggled from the outside. On a positive note—our young middles (Sam Taylor Parks (Kelowna, BC), Kyle Behiels (Edmonton, AB) did a good job.”
Trinity was led by Ryan Sclater (4th year, outside hitter, Port Coquitlam, BC) who had 17 kills in 33 chances with two service aces, three digs and three block assists. Blake Scheerhoorn (3rd year, outside hitter, Belleville, ON) had 15 kills in 23 chances with two service aces, six digs and a solo block.