UNB men’s volleyball earns split with Trinity Western
The University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds men’s volleyball team got a kick start to their pre-season earning a split against the defending CIS silver medalist Trinity Western University Spartans Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Lady Beaverbrook gym. The Reds opened the two match series with a five set loss on Tuesday night (27-25, 17-25, 25-27, 25-23, 11-15) but followed it up with some redemption on Wednesday night, handing the West-coast powerhouse a four set loss (25-20, 25-21, 14-25, 25-22).
On Tuesday night, the Reds came out strong winning the first set. They showed a slight lull by dropping the next two but stormed back to take the fourth, 25-23. In the fifth and deciding set, TWU proved a little too strong on the evening, taking it 11-15. Leading the way for TWO was Rudy Verhoeff with 25 kills and 10 digs. UNB was led on the night by Matt Sweet (O'Leary, PEI), Julio Fernandez (Los Teques, Venezuela), and Tyler Veenhuis (South Branch, NS), all with 15 kills respectively.
The following evening saw the Reds jump all over the Spartans early, winning the first two games 25-20 and 25-21. The Spartans gave a dominating performance in the third set by handily winning 14-25 but the Reds were able to hold off the charge, winning the fourth, and what proved to be final, set 25-22. Leading the way for the Varsity Reds was Julio Fernandez with 14 kills and 10 digs while Stephane Fontaine (New Maryland, NB) was big on the defensive side, recording nine digs of his own. For TWU, Joshua Doornenbal led the way with 10 kills and seven digs.
Varsity Reds head coach, Dan McMorran had this to say about playing such a strong team at such an early point in the season, “One of the things we wanted to do was to have whoever we brought in to be a top caliber team. Trinity Western is the defending CIS silver medalist and the CIS standings came out yesterday and they are the number three team in the country.”
The CIS Top Ten was based on exhibition game results that have taken place so far this season; the number one team in the country is Alberta and the Spartans beat the Golden Bears 3-0 already this year.
“It’s really important [to play a high caliber team] because it validates the things our coaching staff has been teaching to our players. If we want to get to a different level we’re going to have to change some of the things that we do. We’re going to have to train differently, to behave differently on the floor… To have a perennially strong team like Trinity Western here gives us something to gear towards. Had we lost last night’s match and still played well, it still would’ve been a fantastic result for us.”
The Varsity Reds had question marks coming into the season, one of the question marks being the left side. The team basically had two new left sides who are going to be given the starting nod. Matt Sweet is returning after not being with the program for a year and Julio Fernandez who played one semester last year will both be given starting positions. The other question mark was the libero. Kyle Blanchard (Saint John, NB), who played left side last season, was transformed into a libero. Those three were responsible for the serve reception, those three were the question marks, and they did the job for the V-Reds.
McMorran was extremely pleased with what he saw during the two game series, “If we couldn’t pass the ball against a team like that, we could not run offense against a team like that. Our middles Jacob Kilpatrick (Saint John, NB) and John Sheehan (New Maryland, NB) played the best ball of their careers and Stephane Fontaine, a second year setter, got the starting nod both nights and did very well.”
The V-Reds begin their conference play next weekend when they will travel to Quebec City for interlock games against Universite Laval, Universite de Montreal, and Universite de Sherbrooke.