For the second time in University history, the Trinity Western women’s volleyball team will return home from the U Sports championship with a bronze medal as the Spartans captured third place at the national tournament with a 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-13) win over Ottawa Saturday afternoon.
The Spartans, who previously won bronze in 2011 after a four-set win over Alberta, led from start to finish as they never allowed Ottawa to generate any momentum and cruised to dominant wins in all three sets.
Championship website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/wvball/index
Hitting .407 for the match while holding Ottawa to .088, the Spartans were in control from the outset. Trinity Western had a 40-17 edge in kills and committed just seven errors to the Gee-Gees 11 en route to the win.
Spartans setter Kelci French (Okotoks, Alta.), who contributed 32 assists, did well to spread the ball around as TWU had five players with at least five kills. Leading the attack was Amber Brown (Three Hills, Alta.), Amy Ott (East Selkirk, Man.) and Nicole Bazin (Winnipeg), who each had eight kills.
The Gee-Gees, who had lost in a five-set semifinal to Alberta Friday night, struggled to keep up with a determined TWU side as setter Christina Grail only had 12 assists while Kelsie English, with five kills, was Ottawa’s top attacker.
“I’m really proud of the team to rise up after a tough loss yesterday,” said Spartans coach Ryan Hofer, whose team was coming off a four-set semifinal loss against UBC. “I believe it takes a ton of character to come back after you’ve been blocked from reaching your goal and go back out there in search of something that’s not quite what you wanted. But a bronze is a great achievement for the school and it’s something the girls should be proud of.
“I thought we served well this afternoon. I thought we attacked them in areas that we thought would give us a good chance to score points. And the girls took advantage of their opportunities.”
Trinity Western got off to a fast start in the opening set, building a 16-8 lead at the technical timeout. After that, the Spartans, hitting .435 for the set and committing just one attack error, rolled the rest of the way to a seven-point win.
The second set was much closer through the early and middle stages, but the Spartans took over down the stretch. With the score 18-16, TWU’s Sophie Carpentier, who hails from Ottawa, earned a kill to give the Spartans a three-point edge. From there, TWU pulled away to win by five points.
With the score 9-7 in the third set, TWU scored two straight points to build a four-point edge. That gap seemed to break the Gee-Gees spirit. Hitting .500 as a team, TWU closed the set in tidy fashion, winning by 12 points. A dump from setter Lauren Moncks (Standard, Alta.) handcuffed the Gee-Gees to give TWU the set and the match.