SEASON REWIND - MEN'S VOLLEYBALL - A SEASON TO REMEMBER
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MEN'S VOLLEYBALL
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2011
SEASON REWIND
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SEASON REWIND - MEN'S VOLLEYBALL - A SEASON TO REMEMBER
CLICK BELOW TO WATCH ALL THREE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES
GOLD MEDAL GAME vs Brandon
SEMIFINAL vs Calgary
QUARTER-FINAL vs Alberta
LANGLEY, British Columbia - Ben Josephson just stood there.
The Spartans men’s volleyball coach had experienced winning a national championship before, in 2006 as an assistant coach with Trinity Western, but not like this. Not as the head coach. Not in such a grueling fashion. And certainly not in front of a home crowd like this.
For the third straight night, nearly 2,000 of the Spartan’s most Faithful had jammed into the Langley Events Centre with one purpose in mind. Do whatever it takes to help the Trinity Western men’s volleyball team win the CIS gold medal.
In the front row of the student section, men’s soccer goalie Andrew Fink bellowed his support while sporting a spaghetti-strap bright yellow gown and a curly blonde wig. Women’s soccer midfielder Sarah Hannigan went with the baby blue toga, yellow head band, aqua blue drum and yellow crocs. While men’s soccer forward and Brazilian native Andre Costa figured his best outfit would include a sleeveless jean jacket, a painted on blue beard, coupled with blue and yellow “eye black,” and dainty yellow bonnet.
And the rest of the student body wasn’t far behind. Or in some cases even ahead: see photo of Danfi Parker. A thousand words wouldn’t have done his get-up justice.
For two nights in a row – Friday night when the Spartans played Alberta in the quarter-final and Saturday when they played Calgary in the semifinal – and for five sets on both occasions, the student section at the LEC jumped, yelled, encouraged, drummed, chanted and jumped some more as they did their valiant best to help their beloved volleyball team beat two of the best teams in the country.
Yet, when Sunday arrived and 6:00 p.m. rolled around, the fans amped up their even higher.
So when Brandon’s Paul Sanderson leapt from the back row – his team trailing 26-25 and 2-0 in sets in the gold medal match – looking for his 10th kill of the match, the blue and yellow clad were ready to explode.
And when Sanderson’s attempted kill met the three man block of Marc Howatson, Daniel Jansen Van Doorn and Josh Doornenbal the Spartans and their fans indeed went berserk and rushed the floor.
Except Josephson.
He stood there.
Lucas Van Berkel, Mikiah Schalk, Nick Del Bianco, John Wiebe, Branden Schmidt, Derek Thiessen and Micah Jansen Van Doorn all ran past him from the bench onto the court as the student section crushed the floor from the other side, but Josephson was thinking about the next point.
For the last six months, but to be more specific the last three days and to be even more precise the last three sets, all he was thinking about was the next point, the point after and the point after that.
As fans and players lost their collective voices and wits in jubilation after their 27-25 third set win, and second men’s volleyball CIS gold medal, the Spartans 31-year-old coach was thinking about points 28, 29 and 30.
Exactly 357 days earlier, the Spartans suffered a 3-1 (25-22, 25-21, 23-25, 27-25) loss to Calgary in the CIS championship gold medal game. From that moment on, Trinity Western had one simple goal: complete some unfinished business.
With the championship tournament set to be hosted by Trinity Western for the first time, the Spartans knew they would be there at the end, but the difference between being there, and winning the whole thing, would be determined in the next 51 weeks.
And Spartans setter Ben Ball summed it up best in a preseason interview when he simply said, “We’re looking to win it all and so I’d say that’s our expectation.”
Throughout the summer a number of Spartans played on Canadian national teams including Rudy Verhoeff and Marc Howatson on the Senior B team, Branden Schmidt and Lucas Van Berkel on the Junior team and Nick Del Bianco, who represented the red and white at the Youth Beach Volleyball World Championships. So for a number of the Spartans, come the fall, they were already in quality form.
But even for those who had kept in peak volleyball shape throughout the offseason, which was indeed most of the team, there was no way to truly prepare for the adventurous gauntlet the Spartans were about to run.
In late August, Trinity Western began what amounted to a 16-day journey to Russia and back. The goal of the trip was to prepare for the upcoming season on the court, serve the local communities off the court and bond as a team in a way only far-reaching trips can.
Going into this season the Spartans team verse was Psalm 133:1.
“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.”
And unity became the all-encompassing spirit of this year’s Spartans. But as they got on the plane en route to Russia, no one could have imagined the event that would make Psalm 133:1 mean so much more.
Marc Howatson lay on the court in Anapa, Russia writhing in pain.
It was Sept. 4, the Spartans were on Day 7 of their Russian trip and just seconds before, Howatson had gone up for a typical block but came down on a teammate’s foot.
From the sideline, Josephson figured it was just a twisted ankle. Frustrating to be sure but nothing too serious. But he quickly realized Howatson’s reaction was telling a different tale.
“I came down and there was a shooting pain in my ankle and I let out a scream and as I was falling I saw that my foot wasn’t in line with my leg,” Howatson said. “I knew something was wrong and it was excruciating pain and then I was on the ground the next thing I knew.”
Howatson had dislocated his subtalar joint in his foot in a “that’s not supposed to look like that” fashion that only athletes like Joe Theisman and Willis McGahee can relate to.
As he lay there with no real knowledge of the extent of his injury, the visuals alone had his teammates and coaches thinking long term. Later on teammates told Howatson they had feared for his career, but in the moment, they prayed.
“It was a really emotional experience for the guys and they responded how you’d want to see,” Josephson said. “They banded together. They bonded. They went first to God and second to each other. Overall it was one of those invaluable moments that brought the team together in a way we probably couldn’t have without it. Don’t be led to believe that that had to happen for the team to bond but our team bonded well because of what happened.”
Upon returning to Canada, Howatson discovered that he in fact hadn’t broken a single bone nor torn a single ligament in his foot or ankle, which, given the injury, baffled his doctors. They said it was possible but extremely improbable.
“You talk to doctors and physiotherapists and they’ve heard of it happening but no one’s ever seen it,” Josepshson said. “It’s kind of like a unicorn. So, Marc’s our little unicorn.”
While Howatson would have been a starter and arguably Trinity Western’s best player this year, somehow his injury was a blessing in a dangling disguise. At the end of the trip to Russia, each and every player on the Spartans team recalled Howatson’s injury as amongst their most memorable. Not because of the dislocation that felled one of their brothers but the way the team rallied around it.
They didn’t win that particular game but there’s no doubt it helped win games down the road.
“The actual experience was a spiritual experience for our team,” Howatson said. “Them seeing me in such pain and having those guys around me was a good experience, if you want to call it that. We really grew through the experience.”
Бог с нами (pronounced – Boags-nam-ee)
It means “God with Us” in Russian.
Before every match this season, the Spartans said it in unison as a team on the court. And given what transpired in Russia with Howatson, there simply couldn’t have been a better phrase to set the scene for each game of what was a very special season.
Upon returning to Canada, the Spartans soldiered on without their starting left side and began tackling an incredibly demanding preseason schedule. In the span of a month, the Spartans went on a trip to the Okanagan, played in a local tournament at Douglas College, participated in a tournament at Queen’s and then travelled further east for a pair of games against New Brunswick and a trio of matches against Dalhousie.
“We packed this preseason with basically a whole season,” Josephson said their preseason journey. “We’ve really put the guys under extreme stress and tested their ability to play in different scenarios. Whether that was getting off a bus, flying red-eye and playing the host team after a 36-hour awake stage or taking four hour bus ride in rush hour traffic in Moscow and having a 10 minute warm-up before playing against a really good team.
“We did a lot of things I guarantee no one else has done. So I think that will pay dividends. By the time we get to nationals and pressure hits, these guys probably won’t really think that’s pressure anymore because just think about all the stuff we’ve done.”
And that was just preseason. Canada West was another ordeal all together.
Ranked No. 3 in the CIS, the Spartans started their regular season on Oct. 29 on the road against UBC. Trinity Western won their opening two games 3-0 and 3-1 but they knew early on that this season would be a battle.
Of the starters from the 2010 CIS gold medal game against Calgary, only two players – setter Ben Ball and libero Jarrod Offereins – returned in the same position.
With Steven Marshall taking a year away from the indoor game, Paul Lindemulder forced to quit due to injuries and Howatson out until after Christmas, the court looked vastly different.
Last year’s middles Verhoeff and Josh Doornenbal moved to the outside, left and right respectively, Lucas Van Berkel and Dan Jansen Van Doorn took over inside and Mikiah Schalk and Nick Del Bianco, a rookie who would be named to the CIS All-Rookie Team, split duties in the second left side position.
It was also a completely different style of play than the one that ended 2010. Instead of a smaller team with a ton of ball control, this year’s Spartans were a much bigger side that blocked and served better than any team in Canada West. Trinity Western finished with a league-high 3.35 blocks per set and a league-high 1.43 service aces per set.
But the switch was not without its growing pains.
In their home opener against Thompson Rivers, the Spartans lost in a five-set match and needed to gut out a five-set win the following night just to avoid a home sweep at the hands of the Kelowna based school.
From there sometimes things went well, as they did in a 3-0 (25-20, 25-23, 25-23) win on the road against Alberta in mid-November. And sometimes they did not, when they lost the following night to Alberta 3-1 (25-12, 25-17, 27-29, 25-18) and hit just 9.4 per cent but by Christmas the Spartans were a very respectable 8-2.
But after the Spartans Holiday Classic in early January – one in which they took top spot after sweeping Calgary 3-0 (25-22, 25-14, 27-25) in the final – the Spartans were hit with another tough blow.
Just over four and a half months after Howatson went down in Russia, he came back. After getting his feet wet by playing libero in the Holiday Classic, Howatson made his return to Canada West action on Jan. 21 against the Dinos. While he wasn’t quite yet the Howatson Spartans fans had witnessed over the previous three years, he still managed four kills, five digs and a block. That was the good news.
The trouble for Trinity Western was that after dominating the first set of the first match against Calgary and winning 25-15, the Dinos simply proved to be the better team.
The Spartans lost the next six sets in a row and suddenly saw their record drop to 8-4 and their dream of hosting the Canada West Final Four all but shattered.
The back-to-back losses also marked the first time since 2002 the Spartans had been swept on home court by a team not named Alberta. Saskatchewan was the last team to do it as they earned a pair of 3-1 wins on Nov. 1 and 2.
“We’ll come back Monday, bring our hard hats and earn the right to win another match,” said a disappointed Josephson after the second game.
But that’s the thing about this year’s Spartans team. Unity was the focal point of this year’s season and the Spartans got right back up and won three in a row, two against Saskatchewan and the first of two against Brandon. But then the second night against Brandon came and went in a flash and the Spartans were once again reeling from a loss.
Josephson sat in his office at the Langley Events Centre with a blue Spartans hoodie on and leaned back in his chair against a stark white wall.
His mind was racing.
His team had just split against Brandon, was going into a home series with No. 5 ranked Manitoba and he seemed about as unsure as he’d been all year. He talked about his team showing in Brandon that they were not quite ready to sweep a playoff series. He talked about needing to figure out how to win against top quality opponents on back-to-back nights. He didn’t say it, but in reality heading into their final weekend of the year, the Spartans hadn’t swept a ranked team all season.
Two dominating performances over Manitoba changed things dramatically.
The Spartans had loads of confidence and went into the playoffs with the intention of winning their way into the CIS tournament. And with two 3-0 sweeps of Thompson Rivers, they did just that.
But their next game would be in the Canada West Final Four semifinal match against Calgary.
In the last three meaningful games they had played against the Dinos – the 2010 CIS gold medal game and two regular season games – the Spartans had only won two sets total. Sure they knew they would be in the CIS tournament no matter what happened at the Final Four, but a win over Calgary would prove a point, if only to themselves.
It didn’t happen, The Spartans lost a five-set thriller to the Dinos and, after up and coming Brandon surprised Alberta in the other semifinal, Trinity Western found itself playing for bronze against the Golden Bears.
Earlier in the year, Spartans graduating middle turned right side Josh Doornenbal, who would be honoured with the Complete Champion Award at season’s end, had told Josephson the only two medals he was missing from his collection was a Canada West bronze and a CIS gold. In 2006-07, he earned a Canada West gold and a CIS bronze and in 2009-10, he earned a Canada West silver and a CIS silver.
So the table was being set for Doornenbal to complete the set.
With a 3-1 (21-25, 25-19, 25-18, 25-15) win, one in which Doornenbal collected nine kills and six blocks, he was now only missing the shiniest of them all.
As the Spartans prepared for the national championship, they knew it was going to grueling test.
No team had ever beaten three Canada West teams in a row to win the CIS gold – something that looked like a distinct possibility at the beginning for Trinity Western and eventually became a reality – and rarely, if ever, had there been such an epic quarterfinal match as the one they were about to play: Alberta, who had been ranked No. 1 or No. 2 all year versus Trinity Western, who had been No. 3 or No. 4 all year.
When Josephson received the news that the Golden Bears would be their first round opponent, he felt sick.
Alberta had won two of the last three CIS gold medals and hadn’t lost a CIS national tournament quarter-final match in 10 years. Although for Trinity Western, in five CIS appearances, they had never lost a quarterfinal game either.
So with something quite obviously needing to give in what would be the feature matchup Friday night at the Langley Events Centre, as Josephson’s four-month old son Cooper said on Twitter, “Nationals week for daddy's team. He & I have been learning about Bears.”
But while Bears were the opponent, the learning tool was Eric Liddell.
As Trinity Western geared up for the final weekend of the year, the story of Liddell – the winner of the men’s 400 metres at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris and the main character in the film Chariots of Fire – was a point of emphasis.
In the movie, as Liddell prepared to run the 400m race from the sixth and outside lane, American sprinter Jackson Scholz handed Liddell a note that read “Mr. Liddell, It says in the old Book, ‘He that honours me, I will honour.”
For Liddell, in the next 47.6 seconds he honoured God with his gifted talents, racing to a gold medal. And the Spartans had the same goal. Just on a volleyball court.
When eventual CIS tournament MVP Rudy Verhoeff walked into the Langley Events Centre for each game, he looked up at the national flags draped on the centre gym’s north wall. The flags reminded him of freedom which reminded him that “In Christ, we have freedom.” And despite the roar of the crowd pouring from the stands, somewhere in Verhoeff’s mind could see Liddell running free.
“[Liddell] was a great runner and he talked about how God created him for a purpose,” Josephson said. “But God also created him fast and he felt God’s pleasure when he ran. And we talked about how these guys are gifted in those ways. That’s what we tried to embody. We feel God’s pleasure when we play well and play free. This is how they’re talented and this is their gifts.”
On Friday, April 4, 2011, the LEC centre gymnasium experienced something it had never experienced before.
It had rocked pretty good during its grand opening when the basketball teams had hosted Victoria and nearly 1,500 people were in attendance but this was completely different
The crowd of nearly started filing in early and it was clear this was going to be a special night. With Alberta on the docket, the Spartans knew nothing but a five-setter would be appropriate.
The two most decorated teams in the last seven years – Alberta with seven CIS medals and Trinity Western with five – had plenty of history at the national tournament. In 2007, Alberta beat Trinity Western in five sets in the semifinal. In 2006, Trinity Western beat Alberta in three sets in the gold medal game. And in 2005, Alberta beat Trinity Western in five sets in the gold medal game.
But on this night, it was that dominating 2006 win – one in which the Spartans won 25-21, 25-8, 25-16 – that resonated most.
On this night, with the Spartans won the first set 25-23, lost the second 25-23, won the third 25-17, lost the fourth 25-21, and were leading 14-11 in the fifth set when the Bears Erik Mattson went back to serve.
Five years prior, Josephson was an assistant coach with the Spartans and Ron Pike was the head coach. In the third set of the 2006 championship game, the Spartans had Alberta by the scruff of the neck. Bears coach Terry Danyluk, who was still running the Bears bench in 2011, called a timeout. But it was Pike who made the most impactful, and longest lasting, statement.
“Play one point at a time,” Pike said just before his team broke its huddle.
Josephson called it “point match” but five years later he emphasized the very same idea.
“Every point is a match,” Josephson said after the Alberta game. “You can see us holding up one finger at times, especially when the game was close at the end, and that is what we thought about the whole way. Every time it was just one more. Let’s win this match. Let’s win this match. And we won enough of them to win the big match.”
With Mattson serving and the crowd ready to explode, Verhoeff took a set from Ball and pounded home the winner off the left side. Verhoeff finished with 21 kills while Doornenbal had 16 and Dan Jansen Van Doorn had 13 blocks and the Spartans, exhausted yet excited, were through to the semifinal.
The crowd roared, but with some restrain. There were still two more games to go.
Before the Spartans game against the defending CIS champion Calgary Dinos in the semifinal, a game that constituted a rematch of last year’s title game, and before entering the madhouse that was the LEC, the team shared communion.
For a squad that had talked about Бог с нами and “how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity,” breaking bread only seemed fitting.
“The message was just that Christ freed us from the bonds of sin,” Josephson said. “We wanted to have the guys embody that same mentality and get freed from the pressure of the game and just be relaxed and enjoy it. This is their moment of worship; playing volleyball like a band of brothers.”
Once again, the crowd, this time of 1,850 helped the Spartans race to a 25-17 first set win, a 25-23 third set win and a 15-9 fifth set victory.
“We got beat down pretty good in that fourth set and going in the fifth set we just said ‘Freedom guys,” Josephson said. “This is worship. This is what we do. This is our chapel.’ And we played with unbelievable poise and toughness the whole night and I thought they embodied a lot of the identities we’ve been building into our team all season long.”
As a team, the block was once again the catalyst for the Spartans win. After collecting 18.5 team blocks against Alberta, Trinity Western had 20 team blocks against Calgary and against the Dinos five players had four or more blocks. Compare that to Calgary who had 8.5 team blocks and only David Egan had more than three blocks.
“It’s huge. The last three times we’ve lost to [Calgary],” Van Berkel said after the game. “Especially last year in the national finals, we all remember that. But I feel that we came into the game as every other game and the same way we came against Alberta. In the fifth set we had the same mentality and just came to win.”
For the second year in row the Spartans were in the national championship game. And after Brandon beat Laval in the other semifinal, the gold medal game would be an all-Canada West matchup for the ninth time in the last 10 years.
Most of the Spartans had dreamt about getting back to the national championship game.
Trinity Western libero Jarrod Offereins had literally dreamt about this moment.
Back in the fall, Offereins had had a dream the Spartans would face Brandon in the CIS gold medal game. At the time the Bobcats were amidst what would turn into a six-game losing streak, albeit one in which they were forced to play top ranked teams Alberta, Calgary and Manitoba. So when Offereins told his teammates about his dream, it was little more than brief chuckle and a “hmm, that’s interesting.” Although Brandon was still very much in the CIS Top Ten, it would have seemed to make a little more sense had Alberta or Calgary or Laval been the sleepy opposition.
But Brandon was the team in his dream and incredibly in reality.
Word spread before the final match that this dream had come true. Bobcats players asked him how it ended. He didn’t know. Yet.
The Spartans year started in Russia and as Trinity Western’s players said Бог с нами for the last time, it all made sense.
In the stands were both Konstantin Stakhovich, otherwise known as Stan the Russian and the Spartans translator on their preseason trip, and Dave John, otherwise known as DJ and the Spartans Athletes in Action leader on their trip and on the court was Marc Howatson. Just how things started.
In the stands were 1,935 of the Spartan Faithful. And after two five-setters on back-to-back nights, the Spartans would need every one of them.
With the deafening crowd urging the Spartans on, Trinity Western was unstoppable in the first set, winning 25-12.
Brandon’s Paul Sanderson, the Canada West all-time career record holder for kills, points and aces was befuddled. His score line in the first set read one kill, three attack errors and one service error. As a team Trinity Western held Brandon to -30.3 per cent attacking.
The second was much closer.
But after trailing 21-20, the Spartans went on a 5-1 run to end the game with none other than Verhoeff getting the decisive kill.
In the third set, Brandon was the aggressor and had no intentions of being swept. With the score 23-20, the Bobcats were on the verge of sending the match to a fourth set. But the Spartans crowd wouldn’t let it happen. A couple of attack errors from Brandon and a Van Berkel service ace tied it 23-23.
At 24-23 and 25-24, Brandon had a chance to close it out, but couldn’t. And after a service error by Kevin Miller and a bad set from Paul Sanderson, Trinity Western’s Verhoeff stood at the line with match point in his hand.
“The whole season long we’ve been trying to play for God’s glory,” Verhoeff said after the post-game chaos. “That’s something we really focused on this weekend. We played with freedom and the realization that we’re free from our sins in Christ and we have the ability to play free and have fun and just enjoy the game of volleyball.”
A few seconds later, Verhoeff and setter Ben Ball, who were both named tournament all-stars, were mauled by their peers and soon were riding atop their shoulders. Josh Doornenbal was celebrating the missing piece in his medal collection. Jarrod Offereins learned how his dream ended. Marc Howatson was triumphant in what was a miraculous return to the court.
The Spartans won CIS gold medal by beating Brandon 3-0 (25-12, 25-22, 27-25).
And for the first time in quite some time Josephson breathed.
It took a second, but assistant coach Joel Jansen hugged him first. And then it finally kicked it. He didn’t have to stand there anymore. Points 28, 29 and 30 didn't need to be earned.
For this year, there were no more points to earn. No more rallies. No more thinking.
And atop the mountain, the Spartans stood.
-TW-
Last Updated: 2011-04-13
Email: Mark.Janzen@twu.ca