CALGARY – After a heart-breaking loss on Friday night in which they fought back valiantly from an early deficit, the #7 Trinity Western Spartans made good on their second attempt at an upset bid on Saturday, beating the #1 University of Calgary Dinos by a set-score of 3-1 (21-25, 25-19, 26-24, 25-20).
BOX SCORE
The Dinos could not weather the Spartans' attack on Saturday evening, which got a superb 21 kill performance from second year outside hitter Steven Marshall. Marshall connected on 46% of his attacks, had six digs and two service aces to round out his match-breaking performance.
Trinity Western held a 58-48 attacking advantage over the Dinos, and also out-dug the home team 44-35, which ultimately proved the difference. Calgary did best the Spartans in the blocking department with 12.5 to their eight.
Calgary took the first set of the evening, which featured strong hitting from both clubs. It was Calgary's ability to block the Spartan attack in the first game that really made the difference, making 3.5 blocks to Trinity's zero. Pat Lenaour had four kills in the first set to lead the Dinos, and finished with nine in total.
However Trinity did not seem interested in letting Calgary go up two for the second straight evening, as a text-book tip over the double block from Marshall with the second game tight at 18-17 sparked a 6-2 run to finish out the set.
Trinity kept rolling from there, escaping some late mistakes and fending off a strong push from Calgary to gain the 26-24 victory. The third set featured very strong kills from the Spartans, with the Langley-based team feeding off of them one-by-one emotionally.
The Dinos seemed to come alive again in the fourth set with their backs against the wall, getting very good performances from their middles, David Egan and Oleg Podporin. Both big men had key blocks in a couple mid-game runs where Calgary seemed ready to break away from the Spartans and push it to a fifth set.
The Spartans refused to step aside however, staying with the Dinos and finally breaking away for good after a spectacular rally while up 21-20. Rudy Verhoeff, a graduate of Calgary Christian High School, ended the back-and-forth affair with a stifling block on Podporin to go up two, which in fact carried the Spartans to the match victory.
Along with Marshall, the Spartans got a great performance from outside hitter Marc Howatson, who had 15 kills, while Verhoeff had 10 in the supporting effort.
“As we knew, it was going to be a tough match,” said Dinos head coach Rod Durrant, who watches his team fall to 6-2 in the loss. “But we definitely did some good things. We got the month off now to get healthy and evaluate where we need to improve, and we'll go from there.
“Trinity deserves all the credit tonight; they played an outstanding game,” concluded Durrant.
The Dinos leaned heavily on their men in the middle, getting 22 kills combined from Egan and Podporin, while Curtis James chipped in with 13 kills, seven digs and five blocks from the outside.
Both teams sit at 6-2 in Canada West after the weekend split, and will resume play in January after the winter exam break. Trinity Western will host the Alberta Golden Bears for a two game set on January 8th and 9th, while the Calgary Dinos will invite the Saskatchewan Huskies, who upset the Golden Bears Saturday evening in five sets, for two games on the same weekend.
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