WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL (CANADA WEST)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2014
TRINITY WESTERN (0) AT BRANDON (3)
(25-13, 25-11, 25-21)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NO. 3 SPARTANS SETTLE FOR SPLIT WITH NO. 2 BOBCATS

BRANDON, Manitoba – The No. 2 Brandon University Bobcats rebounded from Friday's three set loss to defeat the visiting No. 3 Trinity Western University Spartans 3-0 in Canada West volleyball Saturday night in Brandon, Man. The 25-13, 25-11, 25-21 loss drops the Spartans into a second place tie with the Bobcats at 15-5. The loss also snaps the Spartans 10 match winning streak.

The Spartans could not get their attack going tonight and finished with their worst attacking match in nearly ten year as they ended the night at a negative four percent (21-25-101) in attack efficiency, while the Bobcats were cruising along at 25 percent (36-10-104). Brandon's serving, with 10 aces and blocking with 10 team blocks kept the Spartans off their game for the entire match.  TWU finished the match with five aces and five team blocks.

Second year outside hitter Sophie Carpentier (Ottawa) with nine kills, and fourth year outside hitter Royal Richardson (Rocky Mountain, Alta.) with five kills led the Spartans attack. On the Bobcats side Brandon was led by Vaovai Aiono (Auckland, NZ) with 11 kills, four blocks and three aces.

"The Brandon team we were expecting and preparing for all week showed up tonight," said Spartans coach Ryan Hofer. "We didn't match the energy and intensity in which they played. We outplayed them on the serve receive battle yesterday and they did that to us today. We couldn't manage and control the ball as well as they did. We just need to go back to the drawing board and we're going to use this weekend to get better."

The Spartans had their troubles in the first two sets and found themselves behind by double digits early in each set and were unable to recover as the dropped the first set 25-13 and the second 25-11.

In the third set TWU started to find their rhythm and held a 17-13 lead just after the technical timeout. The Bobcats went on a five point run to take an 18-17 lead. The two teams matched each other for the next five points and were tied at 20-20. From there the home team took control of the set and outscored TWU five to one to take the set 25-21 and the match 3-0.

The Spartans will now head home to conclude Canada West play on February 7-8 when they will host the University of Winnipeg Wesmen. Game times at the Langley Events Centre on Friday and Saturday are set for 6 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Match Notes: Tonight's match was the first time that the Spartans have hit for a negative team efficiency in Canada West conference play since hitting a negative 7.1 percent ten years ago  in a 3-0 loss to UBC on February 7, 2004… With tonight's loss and the No. 1 UBC Thunderbird 3-0 win over Saskatchewan the Spartans will now host the Canada West quarter-finals in two weeks…

-TW-