Kings semifinal bound
The Red Deer College Kings gained a measure of revenge on Friday, downing the MacEwan Griffins 3-1 in the ACAC men’s volleyball championship at The King’s University College in Edmonton.
The Griffins eliminated the Kings from championship contention on the opening day of the ACAC playoffs each of the last two years, a fact that had a handful of RDC veterans on edge.
“A couple of our veteran guys played a little tight at times, knowing the history we’ve had with MacEwan,” said Kings coach Aaron Schulha, whose team prevailed 25-15, 19-25, 25-22, 25-19 and advanced to a semifinal match today against NAIT who beat Lethbridge 3-2 (26-24, 21-25, 25-16, 20-25, 15-12).
“We didn’t play our best match but a win is a win,” added Schulha.
Taylor Hunt led the Kings with 19 kills, two aces, eight digs and one stuffed block. Darcy Froese was RDC’s player of the match, turning in a solid defensive performance with 11 digs and contributing two kills.
Schulha was confident his players will be more relaxed in today’s semifinal.
“The first one is always the toughest one to get out of the way,” he said. “Guys need to know there’s a lot riding on the line tomorrow, but they’ll be able to play more loose and will be a little more comfortable in the gym, as well.”
l The Queens have also advanced to the semifinal at the ACAC women’s volleyball championships, beating The King’s University College 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-22) at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
“We started off a little bit nervous until we got our tempo figured out in that first and they we played really good from then on,” said Queens head coach Talbot Walton. “We played exceptionally well. We were doing things pretty close to the level that we wanted, almost dialed in, but we still have a little room to improve so we can be that much better again tomorrow.”
They will need to be “that much better” as they will face the top seeded Mount Royal University Cougars in the semifinals tonight at 8 p.m.. MRU rolled through the regular season 19-1, but the Queens played them tough in the second half of the season despite losing both matches.
“There’s a little bit of a space for us to be five per cent better and that will make us a whole bunch stronger,” said Walton. “It’s going to be a good semifinal. We’ve been waiting for this opportunity since we played them about a month ago . . . They beat us both times but I thought we were in those matches to the point where if we make a few plays the scores flip around in our favour. We have that in the back of our head, we know that’s a possibility and we’re just going to have to go after it tomorrow to live up to that possibility.”
Jaclyn Neufeld led the Queens with 14 kills and flirted with 100 per cent attack efficiency for most of the match.
l The RDC Kings basketball season came to an end on Friday as they fell 91-64 to the Lethbridge Kodiaks, dropping the best-of-three series in two straight games.
The Kings knew they had a huge hurdle a head of them if they wanted to advance to the ACAC final four tournament when they drove down to Lethbridge to take on the top team in the province.
“They’re No. 1 or No. 2 in the country and they’ve got some great players . . . but we want those games, we want to play against the best . . . but it just wasn’t meant to be,” said Kings head coach Stef Labrecque. “We just couldn’t find a key for the door.
“Lethbridge played really well, they deserved it and they earned. We battled and we worked hard and we prepared hard, but we just couldn’t get the ball to go in that hoop.”
The Kings were led by RJ Wells with 22 points and 11rebounds, but had difficulty developing any kind of a flow.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well — 33 per cent from two and 26 per cent from three,” said Labrecque. “We just couldn’t develop any kind of a rhythm, it was like there was Saran Wrap on the ball. It was tough but they’re a good team.”
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