LANGLEY, B.C. – The No. 1-ranked Trinity Western Spartans earned their eighth straight win, beating Saskatchewan 3-0 (31-29, 25-16, 25-23) Saturday at the Langley Events Centre.
The three-set win also extends the Spartans set winning streak to 24, with TWU having won all eight of their regular season games this year in the minimum.
Third-year middle Jackson Howe (Calgary) led TWU with 13 kills while hitting .579, while fourth-year Eric Loeppky (Steinbach, Man.) had 12 kills and fifth-year Jacob Kern (Edmonton) had 10 kills. Fifth-year middle Pearson Eshenko (Banff, Alta.) had a match-high five blocks and two aces while third-year setter Derek Epp (Saskatoon), who was playing against his former team, had 42 assists.
Daven Pascal had a team-high eight kills and Dylan Mortensen had seven kills while setter CJ Gavlas had 26 assists.
The first set was a battle, with the teams going back and forth well beyond 25 points. The Huskies took a 16-11 lead only to see TWU fight back with a 5-0 run to even the set. Form there, neither team held more than a one-point lead until the Spartans ended the set at 31-29. Saskatchewan had a chance at set-point at 24-23, but that was the Huskies lone opportunity to end the set before, eventually, a block from TWU’s Eshenko finished it for TWU.
The Spartans took their efficiency to another level in the second set, as TWU hit .696 and had a sideout percentage of 94 per cent. Saskatchewan was also efficient on the attack, hitting .438 and committing only one error, but the Huskies had just eight kills to TWU’s 18. However, the Huskies were just 62 per cent in their sideout percentage.
The third set was tight throughout, as, similar to the end of the first set, neither team took anything more than a two-point lead from start to finish. The Huskies hit .476 with just one attacking error in the set, but they had 10 serving errors in the set without an ace. With Saskatchewan holding a 22-21 lead, Kaden Gamache (Abbotsford, B.C.) entered the contest to serve, lifting TWU to a 23-22 lead. Saskatchewan tied it at 23-23, but after a Huskies serving error, Howe buried the match-winning kill.
Over the course of the contest, TWU hit .400 as a team, while Saskatchewan was held to .318. Both teams had six blocks each.
QUOTABLE
Ben Josephson – TWU Head Coach
“It was a really frustrating game. The first and the third sets were really uncomfortable. That’s part of playing against a good volleyball team. We knew this team was going to put us under pressure and largely we dodged that last night by way of our serving, but tonight our serving game wasn’t strong and they applied the uncomfortable pressure. We won enough points to win the sets, but we did not respond the way we need to. I’m extremely disappointed with our play in the third set. That set reflected some of the mistakes we made in that Alberta loss. We stopped executing the block defence phase and they outhit us badly. They just missed too many serves. We clearly didn’t learn our lesson from Alberta and we’re going to have to go back to work and try to figure out how to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Our sideout phase was great but our block defence was really poor and that’s not going to be good enough to get out of Canada West. That’s not good enough to win a playoff series. That’s not good enough to win the league and it’s definitely not good enough to win a national championship. And if that’s the case, that’s not good enough for us.”
NOTABLE
• This weekend, Josephson earned his 350th and 351st wins of his coaching career at TWU.
• Epp played with the Huskies in his first year of university volleyball (2016-17), earning a spot on the Canada West All-Rookie Team, before transferring to TWU.
• Including preseason, TWU has earned all 13 of its wins in three sets.
• TWU’s only regular season loss this year was a 3-2 setback against Alberta.
UP NEXT
The Spartans will wrap up their fall semester with a road trip to play the Calgary Dinos Nov. 28-29.
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]