The Trinity Western University Spartan men’s volleyball team got some good news last Wednesday. Their gift? A CIS National Championship schedule. The Spartans will begin their bid for a national championship this Friday at Kamloop’s Thompson Rivers University against Queen’s University. Among the field of eight teams, the Spartans earned the #4 seed in the tournament and will be taking on the fifth-seeded Gaels, who are sporting a 16-4 record heading into the tournament. The Gaels are led by 6’6 outside Joren Zeeman, who comes into the tournament with the second most amount of kills in the OUA with 270, averaging almost five points a game.

A decade ago, the closest fans could come to directly interacting with their favourite athletes were if they met at a meet-and-greet or a fundraiser. Even exclusive interviews through various networks would only allow fans to watch and listen. Now, with the explosion of social media, a completely new element to fan/athlete interaction has arisen.

Monday’s and Wednesday’s 8 a.m. lifts: the price of ending a season prematurely. I’m more of a glass half full guy, so I look at it as an opportunity to get a little bit of a ‘pump’ before my 9 a.m. class. Although this rationalization is conveniently weakest when Death Row Records’ “Still Dre” booms from my cell phone at 7.a.m, it is certainly valuable.

Have you ever earnestly prayed, “God can you please let me win, just this one time?” Every time I pray this prayer I lose. Therefore, I do not pray it anymore. I figure that if I am praying this prayer then I am being completely selfish, plus it doesn’t work. Well I have to admit I prayed the “God let me win” prayer our final game against Regina when the score was 14 to 12 for them in the fifth set. I thought we were going to come back and win it, I mean this game was our last ticket to nationals. God did not answer my egocentric prayer, we lost 15 to 12.

The Trinity Western University women’s Spartans headed into the weekend needing a sweep of Thompson Rivers to host the first round of the playoffs: mission accomplished.

On a weekend that had the possibility of both Spartan volleyball teams being eliminated from playoff contention, the only question now is how far can they go?
The men’s volleyball team played against the Thompson Rivers Wolfpack on Feb. 12 and 13, with the entire season riding on the line. The boys entered into the weekend sporting a 10-6 record, with chances for a hosting the first round of the playoffs hanging in the balance. On Friday night, the Spartans fell to the Wolfpack in a wild five set match (21-25, 25-22, 20-25, 25-19, 11-15). Steve Marshall led the team with 23 kills and three blocks but the Wolfpack’s depth and consistency caused havoc all night.

A new season has begun, a season where it comes down to every single game. It is a season where you have one shot at each game and therefore, must show up to play at every game. I am excited for this new, or rather, second, season. Playoffs are right around the corner, well actually, they are this week.

Saturday sucked. In case you didn’t know, we lost a barnburner to UBC that knocked us out of playoff contention, thus ending our season. But of course you knew that, because all of you are hyper-consumed with my weekly blogs and life and follow myself intimately, figuratively, and literally on campus.