Queens win CCAA opener
Queens 3 Lakers 1
NORTH BAY, Ont. — Jilted the night before at the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association women’s volleyball awards banquet, the RDC Queens showed on Thursday they didn’t need no coach of the year or player of the year honours to prove their worth at the national championship tournament.
The second seeded Queens rolled up a 3-1 win over the seventh ranked host Nipissing Lakers (25-15, 21-25, 25-19, 25-15), putting them on the championship side of the bracket.
“It was a very tough opponent to play against — the gym was very loud and busy with the team playing their home opener at nationals, so they came out flying,” said RDC coach Talbot Walton, who was passed over for CCAA coach of the year for Chris Wilkins of the Ontario champion Humber College Hawks.
“They play a different style of volleyball, it wasn’t the rhythm type of volleyball that we were used to — they play a little disjointed — and we had to grind it out to get ourselves going.”
The Queens were led by CCAA player of the year finalist and first team all-Canadian Katie Graves with 15 kills and 11 digs. But she was far from the only Queen making an impact as Jessica Clutton collected 11 kills and five digs, Quinn Shulzke had 11 digs and libero Robyn Brouwer had eight digs.
“Quinn did a good job of delivering the ball all around, and we were able to chip in with kills here and there and get some digs from other people,” said Walton.
Their reward for beating the host is a match up with a familiar foe — the MacEwan Griffins out of Edmonton who are in North Bay on a Wild Card ticket. The sixth ranked Griffins upset the third ranked Vancouver Island Mariners 3-0 (25-16, 25-22, 25-18) in their game Thursday.
“We travel all the way to North Bay to play someone who’s an hour-and-a-half away from home,” said Walton.
The Queens beat the Griffins in the Alberta final in a close four-set match (25-17, 22-25, 27-25, 25-13) on March 1 in Calgary, so there is some familiarity with what they will get in today’s all-Alberta showdown.
“They are a ball control team that tries to spread the ball around on their offence, and I think we match up well against them blocking-wise,” said Walton.
“MacEwan played very well (in their first game). I thought they played better than they did at provincials, so we’ll definitely have to find a new gear.”
The game gets underway at 6 p.m.
The winner will move on to the gold medal game to face the victor of the No. 1 UBC Okanagan Heat and the No. 4 FX-Garneau Les Élans semifinal.
• In other action the UBC Okanagan Heat beat the Mount Allison Mounties 3-0 (25-7, 25-14, 25-11), and FX-Garneau beat Humber College 3-0 (25-13, 25-19, 25-17).
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