SPARTANS DROP COUGARS IN FOUR SETS

CALGARY – Fifth year outside Elizabeth Wendel (Caronport, Sask.) with 19 kills, seven digs, and three aces and fifth year outside Sophie Carpentier (Ottawa) with 19 kills, two aces, and six digs led the No. 3 Trinity Western Spartans to a 3-1 victory over the Mount Royal Cougars Friday night at Kenyon Court in Calgary, Alta.

The 25-18, 26-24, 19-25, 25-17 victory improves the Spartans to 8-1 in Canada West conference play, while the loss drops the Cougars to 4-5. 

"Really pleased with the win on the road," said TWU head coach Ryan Hofer "Mount Royal really pushed us hard from the baseline tonight. So we had to work really hard on serve receive and make some adjustments to figure out some of their servers as they really worked to keep us off of the net. But we adjusted well and really did what was necessary in the fourth set to put the match away." 

"I thought we played really consistent volleyball three out of the four sets. Our blocking started slow but it came together and by the end we had it figured out and were able to put some nice touches on the ball." 

"Sophie and Elly both played well and put up some pretty big numbers," added Hofer. 

Alex Donaghy with 13 kills, 12 digs, and two aces and Kylie Willis with seven kills and six blocks led the Cougars attack. 

TWU fourth year setter Nikki Cornwall (Coquitlam, B.C.) finished the evening with 38 set assists to go with 10 digs, and five blocks, while MRU setter Amy Gordon finished with 33 assists to go with six digs and four blocks. 

TWU had the attacking advantage on the evening hitting at 22.5 percent (53-22-138) to MRU's 11.7 percent (40-26-120). The Cougars had Maddi Quinn and Robyn Po9tolicki led the match with 13 digs each. The Spartans third year libero Rachel Flink (Surrey, B.C.) and second year outside Brie O'Reilly (Langley, B.C.) each contributed 10 digs for TWU. 

The two teams will match up again tomorrow night in Calgary. Match time at Kenyon Court at Mount Royal University is set for 4 p.m. MST. 

Match Notes: TWU finished the night with 11 team blocks, while MRU finished with eight…the Cougars…had the edge in serving with nine aces to TWU's eight… 

-TW-