VIDEO: WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL HOSTS WOLFPACK IN HOME OPENER

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010
WEEKEND PREVIEW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VIDEO: WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL HOSTS WOLFPACK IN HOME OPENER

LANGLEY, British Columbia - The No. 6 ranked Trinity Western women's volleyball team (2-0), coming off a pair of road wins against UBC, plays its home opener this weekend as they host unranked Thompson Rivers (0-0) Friday at 6:00 p.m. and Saturday at 5:00 p.m. The Spartans haven't started a season 3-0 since 2006 when they won their first 10 games of the year.

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SPARTANS (2-0)
CIS Ranking: 6th
Canada West Standing: 1st (tied)
Last Week: UBC 3-1 W, 3-1 W  
Streak: 2 Wins
2009-10 CW Record: 13-7, 3rd
2010 CW Playoffs: 0-2
2010 CIS Tournament: N/A
Last CW Title: N/A
Last CIS Title: N/A
TWU Lifetime vs TRU: 12-0

This past weekend, the Trinity Western women’s volleyball team not only ended the UBC Thunderbirds 40-match winning streak, with a 3-1 win Friday, but the Spartans also swept the T-Birds in a weekend series, completing the deed by winning 3-1 Saturday, for only the second time in their history.

On a weekend when UBC was raising its third straight CIS championship banner, TWU proved they will be a quality opponent this year as they were the better team in six of eight sets.

The Spartans came out strong as they hit .353 in their first set Friday and cruised to a 25-18 win. Despite not hitting quite as well in the subsequent seven sets, the Spartans finished with a .172 attacking percentage (2nd in CW) en route to a rare weekend at the War Memorial Gym.

Defensively, the Spartans held UBC’s attacking percentage to less than .100 in all but three sets and only allowed UBC to eclipse .200 once. In doing so, TWU held UBC to a weekend percentage of just .070.

Although there were only four teams in action last weekend, the Spartans currently lead CW in blocks with 42 for an average of 3.00 per game, are second in CW in both assists, with 10.12 per game, and kills, with 10.75 per game, and third in digs with 13.88 per game.

Individually, TWU’s Kara Jansen Van Doorn leads CW with 4.31 points per game and is tied for the conference lead (with Manitoba’s Tricia Mayba) with 3.75 kills per game.

Setter Chelsea Hudson, who is starting for TWU while Lauren O’Reilly plays for Canada at the World Championship in Japan, is second in CW with 9.12 assists per game. Freshman Alicia Perrin leads TWU, and is fourth in CW, with an attacking percentage of .250.

The Spartans have never lost to TRU and didn’t drop a single set against the WolfPack in two games last year.

WOLFPACK (0-0)
CIS Ranking: N/A
Canada West Standing: 3rd (tied)
Last Week: Did Not Play
Streak: N/A
2009-10 CW Record: 1-19, 11th
2010 CW Playoffs: N/A
2010 CIS Tournament: N/A
Last CW Title: N/A
Last CIS Title: N/A
TRU Lifetime vs TWU: 0-12

The Thompson Rivers WolfPack will be seeing its first action of the Canada West year Friday as they enter the 2010-11 season with a new coach, in Keith Lundgren, who hopes to build up a women’s program that has never made the playoffs and are coming off a one-win season.

Most recently, Lundgren coached at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) for two years where he turned around a team that was 6-14 in 2008-09 to a 15-8 team in 2009-10.

Key returnees this year for the WolfPack include Anna Dyakiewicz, Amanda Frayne and Kelly Asleson. Last year, Dyakiewicz was second in CW with 3.48 kills per game and was sixth in the conference in points with 3.86 per game, while Asleson was eighth in CW with 0.31 service aces per game.

Setter Kristen Knudskov is also returning after a season in which she led her team with 8.00 sets per game.

Lundgren has recruited four key players including setter Kara Twomey, middle/outside hitter Katarina Osadchuk, who played two years for the Australian Junior National Team, libero Denai Wouters and outside hitter Hanna Minck, who last played for Vancouver Island Mariners two years ago. The fifth young addition to the WolfPack is Kira Sutcliffe, who played for the Kelowna volleyball club.

The WolfPack will miss the departed libero Marilia Vasconcellos who averaged 3.46 digs per game..

Last year Thompson Rivers was in the lower third of most Canada West statistics as they had a .144 hitting percentage (9th in CW), a .258 opponent hitting percentage (10th in CW), 11.07 kills per game (9th in CW), 1.61 blocks per game (10th in CW), 12.76 digs per game (10th in CW) and 1.17 service aces (9th in CW).

-TW-

Last Updated: 2010-11-03
Author: Mark Janzen
Email: Mark.Janzen@twu.ca