Men tranquilize toothless Cougars

Posted by admin on Jan 18, 2010 in Sports | 0 comments

After making quick work of the Regina Cougars on Friday night, where the Spartans took command of the game from beginning to end, sweeping the Cougars 3-0, the Spartans took the court again on Saturday feeling pretty confident they could end the weekend with two wins.

The much shorter and younger Regina team, with seven rookies, came into the game winless all season long season and had only captured one set in their entire 2009-10 campaign. As Ben Josephson, coach of the men’s team stated, “It was a good game for us to get a lot of guys in and work on some different things we’ve been trying to improve this semester. The improvements looked good early as Trinity started the first set with a run of 6-1, gaining many of their points quite easily.”

The first set ended up being a dominant one for the Spartans, who clinched the game 25-14 and made quick work of the Cougars, who had many problems all night dealing with the height and power of the Spartans bigs through the middle.

While many fans appeared more interested in the paper airplane contest than the actual game, the Cougars came back with talent and grit in the second half, due to a couple of careless plays by the Spartans. Among these was Paul Lindemulder hitting one of his own team-mates in the back with a pretty hard serve. At the end of the set, the Cougars took the game 26-24, winning their second set all season, coming from behind as the Spartans had two set points to close out the set but failed to capitalize in chances.

However, it was all downhill from there for the Cougars, as the Spartans corrected their mistakes with constant aces and jaw-dropping kills. Setter Ben Ball had 54 assists on the night with two kills of his own to help lead the Spartans on a powerful surge in the third and fourth set. Dan Jansen Van Doorn proved to be just as good as any of his older siblings on the night, using timely kills (3) to help the Spartans gain a 10-point 22-12 lead in the third set, eventually taking the game 25-14.

Even as the cold air-conditioning came on in the fourth set, the Spartans could not be cooled off. They pulled an even bigger lead of 15-4 before finishing the game at 25-16, giving them a sweep of the weekend.

The Spartans had the statistical advantage in nearly every category. Josh Doornenbal, Paul Lindemulder, and Brad Kufske combined for 38 of the Spartans 63 skills on Saturday night, while Marc Howatson led to the team with 11 digs. 

However, while all things look rosy for the team right now, Josephson adds that the team still has some problems: “We need to improve our management of our errors. We are trying to increase the difficulty of our serves but we need to minimize our errors while increasing the toughness.” He also reminds the players and fans that while the team is looking good heading into the playoffs, he thinks the team could be even further ahead. “We’ve been a little too inconsistent for my liking thus far and we’ve dropped a couple matches we could have avoided in the first semester and let one get away against Alberta that we’d like to have back.”
The Spartans will be playing in Winnipeg this weekend.