The Red Deer College Kings and Queens were victorious on home court Saturday against the Ambrose University Lions.
The Queens got the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference games underway first, beating the Lion in three straight sets (25-12, 25-13, 25-19).
Queens head coach Chris Wandler said this definitive win brings some confidence to the team.
“We were really smooth tonight. We’ve been waiting for that type of match to come along since the first weekend,” said Wandler.
The season so far has been up-and-down, said Wandler. But the team is improving and this win was a complete effort from all players.
The Queens are now 7-3 on the season and have won three straight games.
Right after the Queens beat the Lions, the Kings took to the floor to battle Ambrose University.
Like the Queens, the Kings were able to walk away with a victory, but it took them four sets instead of three (25-14, 22-25, 25-10, 25-23).
When RDC had home court (sets one and three) it dominated Ambrose University. But sets two and four were much closer.
Kings coach Aaron Schulha said his team’s serving was much stronger on the home side.
The Kings battled the Lions at Ambrose University Friday, where RDC won in three straight sets. Schulha said Ambrose came to play Saturday night.
“Ambrose played better than they did Friday, which isn’t too surprising. They have some good pieces, are scrappy and have a good coach,” he said.
After Friday’s game Schulha said he wanted his team to be more aggressive when blocking. There was some improvement on that front, but some work is still needed, he said.
“We have some guys who aren’t aggressive enough, especially in one-on-one situations,” he said.
With this win the Kings improve to 7-3 on the season.
“We still have some consistency issues, but that’s to be expected because we have two first-year centres and a lot of new faces.
“When we show flashes of our A game we can rival any team in the country. When we’re not playing well it looks really bad,” Schulha said.
Those first-year centres are coming along, but are still making some first-year mistakes, Schulha added.
The Kings and Queens will be off next week. The teams’ next games will be at SAIT Polytechnic Nov. 24. The Queens and Kings will then host SAIT Nov. 25 at RDC.
“The bye comes at a good time for us. We had a couple rough weekends in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat,” said Schulha.
sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com
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