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Are the Trinity Western Spartans the #1 Men’s volleyball program in North America?

Seemingly unstoppable, the TWU Spartans might very well be the No. 1 men’s collegiate volleyball team not only in Canada, but in all of North America.

At 13-1 this volleyball season, they are currently the top-ranked men’s team in U SPORTS and have recently defeated three of the top six NCAA teams from the United States. 

The Spartans’ recent post-holiday onslaught in the Can Am Volleyball Holiday Showcase included victories against No. 2-ranked UCLA, No. 4-ranked and two-time defending NCAA champion Long Beach State University (LBSU), and No. 6-ranked Lewis University.

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Since 2006, the Spartans have won six national championships—three of them in the last four years, including in 2019—putting them in a position to defend their title again this year.

Trinity Western University excels not only in university-level sports but also at the Olympic level, as a number of alumni have gone on to represent Canada at the Olympics.

This past weekend, Canada’s 14-player men’s volleyball roster that earned a berth into the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo featured four TWU alumni, which is more than any other university program in the country.

Three alumni represented Canada in volleyball at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And most recently, four TWU alumni made up nearly 30 per cent of Canada’s roster at the NORCECA Olympic Qualification Tournament. Furthermore, two players from TWU’s current roster have experience playing with Canada’s senior national team, with both Eric Loeppky and Derek Epp donning the Maple Leaf this past year.

The Trinity Western Spartans are arguably the best team in the conference and the country, consistently putting more players on the national team than any other program in Canada.

They are not planning to back down anytime soon, so who will be the next team outside of U SPORTS to challenge the No. 1 men’s volleyball program on the continent?