Image Credit: TRU WolfPack Athletics / Andrew Snucins

By Adam Donnelly

Women's Volleyball

Hungry WolfPack women prepare to take down TWU Spartans

Jan 25, 2024 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — Another week, another matchup against one of the top university volleyball programs in the nation for the TRU WolfPack women’s volleyball team. The Trinity Western University Spartans come into the weekend as the fourth-ranked team in the nation, and one of five Canada West teams in the USPORTS Top 10.

“Our conference is traditionally strong. This year is no different,” Head Coach Chad Grimm explains. “It’s a new Top 10 team every week, but at the end of the day that’s what’s going to make this group better.”

Since coming back from the winter break, the team has won four of the six matches they’ve played. The players are optimistic that a little home cooking will help push them over the top against a tough opponent.

“We’re definitely pumped up and ready to go this weekend,” second-year setter Libby Meldrum says. “It’s nice to be at home, kind of an interesting schedule change, as we’ve had the last two weekends at home. That definitely makes it easier for us, having that routine, no travel. We’ve had some good practices this week and we’re getting ready to go.”

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It would be easy for the WolfPack players to look past these games against a Trinity Western squad with 14 wins and just two losses on the campaign. However, the ‘Pack is a young squad looking to embrace the challenge.

“I think it’s just more of an opportunity. We’re a younger team and it’ll be cool to see what we can do,” second-year libero Olivia Andulajevic says. “It’s a really big opportunity for us to shine and grow and put what we’ve been working on in practice all together and make it happen.”

Libby Meldrum has been thrust into a leadership role on this young squad, as third-year setter Hadley Schmidt has missed time due to injury. Meldrum has embraced that opportunity.

“With Hadley out with injury, just kind of stepping up and taking this team in kind of like a leadership role, especially in position as a setter, I can step into that,” Meldrum says. “We’re playing together like a team, and it’s all going in the right direction.”

The ‘Pack are poised to return every player but one for next season, making them an extremely young squad. However, Grimm says he’s seen the group take huge strides forward as the season has progressed, which makes him optimistic for the future.

“If a team started off with a little bit of a run, five or six points, we would try to get all those points back at once, and we were looking for stuff that just wasn’t there,” Grimm says. “I think we’ve learned to be a little more patient, claw our way back into games, and always stay close enough that we’re able to close in at the end. A big part of the group is that patience and showing a little bit more maturity in those situations.”

The WolfPack host the Spartans at the TCC at 5:00 pm Thursday night (Jan. 25) and 2:30 pm on Friday.