LANGLEY, B.C. – The defending national champion Trinity Western Spartans opened their Canada West regular season with a straight sets win (25-9, 25-17, 25-23) over the Alberta Golden Bears on Friday at Saville Community Sports Centre.
The Spartans, who were ranked first in the Canada West preseason coaches poll, spread out their potent attack as fifth-year outside hitter Jacob Kern (Edmonton), fourth-year outside hitter Eric Loeppky (Steinbach, Man.), and second-year outside hitter Jesse Elser (Calgary) recorded 10 kills each in TWU’s victory.
Middle Jackson Howe (Calgary) picked up right where he left off last season, hitting .857 with six kills on seven attempts.
As a team TWU committed just five attacking errors, hitting .576. All six Spartans who had an attack finished with at least a .500 hitting percentage. Pearson Eshenko (Banff, Alta.) had six kills while hitting .625 to go with a team-high seven blocks.
TWU setter Derek Epp (Saskatoon), who arrived home from Japan Thursday morning after playing with Team Canada at the FIVB World Cup, finished with 38 assists.
TWU held a 61-31 advantage in total points, 43-28 advantage in kills, and 40-26 edge in blocks.
The first set saw the Spartans turn in an otherworldly .917 hitting percentage, earning 11 kills on 12 attempts without committing a single error. With that, TWU held the Bears to just nine points.
Alberta picked up the pieces and came out much stronger in the second and third sets.
Despite the Golden Bears holding an early 5-4 lead in the second set, the Spartans took a 6-5 lead and didn’t look back.
After leading for the majority of the first two sets, TWU fell behind for much of the third, but the Spartans rallied eventually coming back to take a 22-21 lead before finishing strong for the victory.
The win improves the Spartans to 1-0, while the loss drops Alberta to 0-1 to start the year.
QUOTABLE
Ben Josephson – TWU Head Coach
“It’s always nice to get the first win of the Canada West season under our belts, and I was pumped how we did it. The first set we played was one of the best volleyball sets I have ever seen in my coaching career. We were great in every phase, we played really fast, clean, aggressive and smart all around.
“Alberta definitely started playing much better into the second set as the match wore on, and didn’t give us as many points in some of the things we were really doing well. I thought our serving wasn’t very good into the third set which kept the game really close. A really nice competitive match settled into the third set, where we found a way to come back after we were down in the middle section of the third.
“I think we saw a little of everything tonight against one of our traditional rivals who have a really great team this year. We know Alberta will be in the national championship hunt this year so we’re excited to see what both teams have in store tomorrow.”
NOTABLE
• The last time the Spartans and Golden Bears met was Nov. 3, 2018, with TWU falling 3-2 at home.
• It was also a rematch of the 2017-18 Canada West Championship game, in which the Spartans won 3-1 on March 10, 2018.
UP NEXT
The Spartans and Golden Bears will wrap up their Canada West opening-weekend series on Saturday (Oct. 19) at 5:30 p.m. (PT).
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 11 sports in the Canada West conference, including women’s and men’s soccer, volleyball, basketball, cross country and track & field, as well as women’s rugby sevens. TWU also competes in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) in men’s hockey and as an independent team in men’s rugby. The men’s and women’s hockey programs will begin playing in Canada West and U SPORTS in 2020-21. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 27 Canada West team championships and two BCIHL championships.
[SOURCE: Trinity Western University]