The No. 1-ranked Trinity Western Spartans were dominant on Friday night in a 3-0 (25-12, 25-21, 25-6) road victory over the Regina Cougars at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
After a 25-12 win to open the match, Trinity Western held off a late 8-3 run by Regina and took the second set by a 25-21 margin. The Spartans then jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the third and at one point led 18-2 in the set before finishing off the Cougars with a kill by first-year middle Jayda Harder (Waldheim, Sask.).
Hilary Howe (Calgary) was the only player to hit double figures in kills in Friday’s match, finishing with 10 while hitting .381 and also collecting eight digs and three aces. Avery Heppell (Langley, B.C.) added nine kills for TWU and matched Howe with three aces, while Mikaelyn Sych (Airdrie, Alta.) had a match-high seven blocks and chipped in with six kills.
Emma Gamache (Abbotsford, B.C.) had 13 digs for Trinity Western, which improves to 12-1 with the victory. Dora Komlodi (Calgary) had 24 assists while controlling a Spartans offence which hit .368 as a team in the win. Olivia Heinen (Abbotsford, B.C.) added nine assists.
Britt Davis hit .273 and led Regina (2-11) with eight kills.
QUOTABLE
Ryan Hofer – TWU Head Coach
“I’m really pleased with how our team performed. I really helped that our preparation over the last couple of days really helped us get ready for tonight. Our setters didn’t an outstanding job of just locating the ball, finding the people they needed to find and taking advantage of certain things that were available to us. Our middles did a good job of executing. I think our serving game put us in a good position to score and I was really happy with our attack efficiency.”
NOTABLE
• TWU is 19-2 in its last 21 matches with Regina.
• The Spartans are earned nine of their 12 wins this year in three sets.
• The game marked TWU’s first contest since beating Calgary in back-to-back matches (Nov. 28-29. Regina was coming off a three-match post-Christmas tournament in Edmonton.
