When the Red Deer College Queens volleyball team was faced with replacing a pair of star powers this off-season, they took an unconventional rout to filling the gap.
With Brooke Sutter and Amber Adolf graduating after helping the Queens to their first national championship in a generation, the biggest weapon to step up did not come from the outside, but instead the middle.
Queens head coach Talbot Walton and his staff spent much of their time during the off-season building their system around sophomore Alex Donaghy, 19.
The only downside is, the experiment has been so successful they will have to re-imagine things again this off-season with the Sylvan Lake product heading off to a Canadian Interuniversity Sport program.
“It has been a forced issue by the coaching staff to be good through the middle and thankfully Alex has delivered on what we’ve asked her to do,” said Queens head coach Talbot Walton.
With this focus, her stats have jumped considerably.
Despite playing in only 10 more sets this year, her kills have increased from 84 to 170, her digs from 36 to 64 and her blocks from 21 to 41. She is currently second on the team in generated points per game at 3.61, just behind Miranda Dawe’s 3.66.
Middles are often more of a defence first type player and a third or fourth option offensively.
“It definitely feels good that my team trusts me to give the ball so often,” said the five-foot-nine Donaghy.
She played basketball and volleyball growing up, but focused on Volleyball upon graduation from H.J. Cody High School.
After having spent time with RDC’s U-18 club program, under the guidance of Queens assistant coach Mandy Carroll, it was an easy choice to live at home, go to RDC and play for one of the top college volleyball programs in the country.
Her game has clearly taken big steps from her freshman season, but key to that was playing a role in the club’s Canadian Colleges Athletic Association title last season, their first since 1984.
“Going into that last year was a huge opportunity to see how good you are and it really changed your perspective about being in small-town Red Deer, it doesn’t seem like such a small thing after that,” said Donaghy.
But her high level of play will come at a cost to the Queens as she moves on next year to a CIS program. She has also been a top student, carrying a 3.9 grade point average while working her way through just about every kinesiology class the school has.
A number of programs have recruited her, but she says she is currently trying to decide between Mount Royal University in Calgary — where current teammate Maddi Quinn has already committed — and Brandon University in Manitoba.
“After two years we’ll see some of our athletes flatten out on that learning curve ... but (for Donaghy) I think that learning curve is still on the way up,” said Walton, noting her best fit for continued growth may be at power when she moves on to the CIS.
Before she gets to that point, however, she is focused on helping the No. 1 nationally ranked Queens (20-2; 63-11) back to the CCAA championships.
This weekend they host the Briercrest Clippers (18-4; 60-23), the No. 2 team in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference South division to RDC and No. 5 in the CCAA rankings, in the final weekend of the regular season. In fact, is Briercrest sweeps the Queens, they will earn the division’s top seed at the ACAC championship tournament in Olds Feb. 26-28. But if the Queens win either of the two matches, they will clinch top spot.
The Clippers are a veteran squad that has been building to this point for the last four years, but the Queens are used to playing with a bulls-eye on their back.
“It definitely feels like a bit of pressure, but we talk about how pressure is a privilege and it’s just something we’re going to do and work well under pressure,” said Donaghy. “From the start of the season we talked about how there is that target and we just kind of acknowledge it, but it’s not something we refer to all the time, we don’t play with it in mind.”
Walton says they will have their work cut out for them after splitting in Caronport, Sask., in the first semester.
But this is also the perfect warm up for them as they prepare for the provincial tournament.
“We’ve been doing everything we can to make sure we are at a high level and to make sure everybody is healthy and everybody is ready to play good this weekend,” said Walton. “If we can have a good, solid weekend, it’s just going to build for us for the weekend after.”
The Queens host Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m., with the men following on both days.
• The RDC Queens women’s hockey team (12-6-4) wraps up their regular season this weekend with a home-and-home series against the NAIT Ooks (17-3-2), playing at the Red Deer Arena tonight at 7 p.m. and in Edmonton on Friday at 7 p.m. The Ooks have first place locked up while the Queens clinched second last weekend.
• The RDC Kings men’s hockey team (11-13-0-3) has three games this weekend. They host the MacEwan University Griffins (20-5-0-3) on Friday at 7 p.m, in Penhold, then play in Edmonton against the Griffins on Saturday and then finish in Lac La Biche on Sunday against the Portage College Voyageurs (1-24-0-2).
• RDC basketball has a home-and-home set with the Olds College Broncos this weekend, hosting the Broncos on Thursday with the women playing at 6 p.m. and then men tipping off at 8 p.m. It will be the same times on Saturday in Olds for the rematch.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com