Kings tame Cougars in classic
Kings 3 Cougars 2
The RDC Kings and Mount Royal University Cougars have hooked up in some classic matches over the years and Friday’s Alberta Colleges Men’s Volleyball League contest came close to one of those.
The two rivals battled tooth and nail with the Kings finally securing a 23-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-23, 15-13 victory before a loud and appreciative crowd at RDC.
The Kings ran their record to 12-5 while the Cougars dropped to 6-10.
“Their record isn’t indicative of their team,” said Kings head coach Aaron Schulha. “They’ve been battling a few injuries and besides they always get up to play us and we get up to play them. We could have been a little more crisp at times, but it was a heck of a battle.”
At times it looked as if the Cougars had control of the match, especially when they took a 10-7 lead in the fifth set.
“It wasn’t looking good, but the guys really dug down and battle, which was good to see,” added Schulha, whose squad has needed to battle from behind several times this season.
“That probably helped us today,” he stressed. “Plus we had something to prove after last weekend (at Briercrest). We needed to get back on track after the two losses especially going into the conference championship (in a couple of weeks).”
The Kings return to Mount Royal today and Schulha doesn’t expect anything but the Cougars’ best.
“The guys have to be ready for another tough five-set test and if it’s three or four sets so be it. The fact is we have to prepare for long matches the rest of the way.”
Taylor Hunt was certainly ready Friday as the Kings right side star finished with 37 kills, four aces, three stuff blocks and nine digs. In fact he was the reason the Kings got back in the match after dropping the first set. He had 10 kills, four aces and one block in that second set alone.
“He was great and he came through with a clutch serve for that final point (in the fifth set),” said Schulha. “At times he chooses to go all out (with his serve) when I don’t want him to, but I gave him a look and he served at about 70 percent and they couldn’t control it. He continues to build his maturity and if he keeps showing that maturity and building on the little things then all the other guys will follow and we’ll be tough to beat.”
Quentin Schmidt added 11 kills for RDC while Sean Tuff had eight kills and Boston Maris six kills and three blocks.
Dan Durham led MRU with 22 kills and two blocks while Lucas Stepanko added 13 kills.
Cougars 3 Queens 0
The final score may not have looked like it, but the RDC Queens proved something to themselves in their 11-25, 24-26, 23-25 loss to the undefeated MRU Cougars.
The Queens, 11-6, gave away the opening set with 13 unforced errors while once they settled down they showed they can play with the veteran-laden Cougars, 16-0.
“That first set was a write-off,” agreed Queens head coach Talbot Walton. “We came in with a picture in our mind how we wanted to play and that may have been a little beyond our capacity. But once we settled down and found a groove we were where we wanted to be.”
The Queens led the final two sets late, but couldn’t put it away.
“But we were right there with them and I believe we have the capacity to be better than them,” said Walton. “I believe our style of play is well suited to play against them and we just need to be consistent. At times we broke down and gave them several easy shots and they didn’t miss.”
But the Queens did show late that they could handle the high-powered Mount Royal attack.
“We moved Tarah (libero Tarah Truant) into a better position and she got to a lot of balls. Now our blockers just need to do a little better job and once we start turning back their hits they’ll have to look for a secondary answer and I’m not sure they have one.”
Robyn Denney led RDC with eight kills while Jaclyn Neufeld had five kills, an ace and one block while Truant had 15 digs.
Andrea Price had 14 kills and eight digs for MRU while Diyon Van Nistelrooy had five kills, five blocks and three aces.
• RDC paid tribute to former King Jon Walsh between matches with a 30 minute ceremony . . . Walsh, who was playing pro in Europe and was a player agent, passed away earlier this year . . . They set up a Jon Walsh Memorial Scholarship and Kings middle Boston Maris was the initial recipient . . . RDC squads round out their home schedule next Saturday at 1 p.m. against Grant MacEwan.
drode@reddeeradvocate.com
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