SASKATOON – The No. 3 ranked Trinity Western University Spartans showed why they are considered one of the top teams in the country Friday night with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-15, 25-20) over the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.
 
It took just over an hour for the Spartans to improve to 5-0 on the season. Saskatchewan drops their third straight match against a top three opponent to fall to 2-3 in 2015.

Sophie Carpentier (Ottawa) led TWU's attack with an errorless 15 kills on 28 attempts for a .536 hitting percentage, while Elly Wendel (Caronport, Sask.) added 10 kills to go with five blocks and middle Kristin Anton (Prince George, B.C.) had a career-high 10 blocks. Setter Nikki Cornwall (Coquitlam, B.C.) had 31 assists.

Emmalyn Copping led the Huskies with six kills. Josie Leduc recorded two of the Huskies five service aces. Jenelle Sokoloski led all Huskies with eight digs.
 
TWU hit .386 as a team and committed just six attacking errors while also collecting 14 blocks. Saskatchewan hit -.011 and were held without a block.

"I am really pleased with how the team played tonight," said Spartan coach Ryan Hofer. "We worked hard on a few things this past week in practice and it was nice to see those things work in the game. I thought Nikki did a really good job tonight. I thought our blockers did an excellent job of containing Saskatchewan. We managed the ball well and the girls made Saskatchewan play and extended rallies. It was just a fun game to be a part of."

The Huskies kept the Spartans attack at bay in the opening part of the first set, trailing just 10-9. From there, the Spartans closed the set on a 15-4 run, capitalizing on some attack errors by Saskatchewan.
 
In the second, TWU jumped out to an early 8-4 lead before the Huskies clawed back to 8-7. A pair of Carpentier kills sparked a 6-0 Spartan run that Saskatchewan could not recover from.
 
With the third tied 14-14 and the Huskies gaining momentum, a pair of errors followed by back-to-back Devaney kills grew the Spartans lead to four. The Huskies battled back and stopped any large runs, but could not get the deficit any less than four.
 
The two teams meet again tomorrow night at the PAC in Saskatoon. First serve will go at 6 p.m.

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