They needed five sets, but the RDC Kings topped their rival NAIT Ooks to go undefeated in the RDC Holiday Inns and Suites Volleyball Classic.
In the final match Saturday, the Kings went the distance (25-16, 29-31, 25-20, 23-25, 15-11) with the Ooks in a thriller that was also a little redemption after NAIT beat RDC last weekend. With a rowdy crowd and both benches fired up, the two teams previewed what’s sure to be a hotly contested rivalry throughout the regular season.
“They’re a very good team. They got us last weekend 3-1. They’re a very tough serving team,” Kings head coach Aaron Schulha said of the Ooks squad.
“That environment isn’t typical in the preseason so it was nice to have what seemed like a for real-type game… It’s nice to have that one as the last game of the tournament and have a good feeling going into training next week.”
Schulha added that he thought his team had some down moments in the match against NAIT, but said they could take a few lessons away from how their opponent approached late-set situations.
“Really well, I always look a bit of the negatives and the two sets we lost were both by two points and I think we had opportunities to win both those,” Schulha said.
“I think we can learn from them, even when they were down late in those sets they went back and were ripping serves and being really aggressive and that’s what we need from our side. Really good resiliency and especially for our young guys that are new to the program, it’s good for them to see that type of atmosphere. What the quality across the ACAC is.”
Overall, the Kings head coach was happy with the four victories, but knows his team needs to find a different gear when they aren’t playing their best volleyball.
“A lot of good and some bad. Our match that first night against Keyano (College) was quite clean, we played solid all the way through,” he said.
“Then the next two matches were a little more down than up. Finding ways to win is part of being in this league as well. You’re not always going to play your best match, it’s a matter of us raising our level of our worst match. Then finding ways to grind it out against quality competition.”
The Kings will raise their national title banner in two weeks time on Oct. 13 when they host Briercrest College and while Schulha believes his team got a good taste of their skill set this weekend, they’ll need to up their game going forward.
“The guys got a feeling of what we’re capable of on our top-end, but our bottom end still needs to get pulled up, if we want to make sure we are giving ourselves a chance each and every night,” he said.
Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
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