Kings 3 Lions 0
Queens 3 Lions 0
Neither team was as sharp as they will need to be down the stretch but both RDC teams were good enough to sweep an Alberta Colleges Volleyball League doubleheader from the Ambrose University Lions at RDC Saturday.
The Queens opened with a 25-16, 25-14, 25-20 victory followed by a 25-15, 25-19, 25-21 win by the Kings.
“It wasn’t spectacular and we weren’t as gritty as last night (a 3-0 win at Ambrose),” said Kings head coach Aaron Schulha. “We missed too many serves (five in each set) but then Matt (Lofgren) and Brian (Grenier) both started using the spin serve at Christmas so you can understand some misses there.
“But there were some bad misses, hits into the net where we didn’t force them to make a decision. It’s something we’ll discuss.
“The important thing was we were able to work on it in a couple of matches and we should be more comfortable in bigger matches down the road.”
The Kings, 14-2, have a bigger match this coming weekend as they face the SAIT Trojans, 10-6. The Queens have even a bigger test as they’re tied with SAIT for second in the South Division at 13-3.
The Queens were simply the better team than the Lions, who they defeated 3-2 Friday.
But head coach Chris Wandler didn’t like some things he saw.
“In the third set, especially, we were undisciplined, a little casual in what we were trying to do at the service line and we were nonchalant passing the ball,” he said. “We talked about keeping composed but the body language depicted the score as we were too casual. But then that’s coaching opportunities and we need to bring that out of them before the big games next week.”
The Queens are healthy while the Kings are not.
The Kings still have outstanding setter Luke Brisbane (quad) and middle Adam Turlejski (back) sidelined with injuries.
“Luke was out last week but it’s still bothering him so we shut him again until this week.” said Schulha. “Adam hopes to return to practice on Monday. It will be nice to have a full lineup.’
One of the benefits of Brisbane’s injury was it gave backup setter Ryan Beatson a lot of playing time and he responded. He’s been especially sharp of late and Saturday finished with 35 assists.
“He needed the reps and it will certainly help him down the line,” said Schulha. “As well Scott Irvine has been playing well on the right side and once everyone is back it will allow us to make that double switch if we need to.”
Regan Fathers led the Kings with 13 kills, two aces and three digs while Grenier had 11 kills and six digs and Lofgren seven kills, three aces, six digs and a block. Ty Moorman also had seven kills
Miranda Dawe finished with eight kills, three assists, two blocks and nine digs for the Queens while McKenna Barthel was the player of the game with seven kills, two aces, three blocks and 13 digs. Megan Schmidt had eight kills and Fauve Welsh three kills, two aces, two blocks and a dig. Ashley Fehr finished with 23 assists.
The teams play Friday at SAIT and Saturday at 6 p.m. at RDC.
Danny Rode is a retired Advocate reporter who can be reached at drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com. His work can also be seen at Danny’s blog at rdcathletics.ca