Despite strong play from Martin, Kodiaks shade Kings in five sets

Brent Forster - RDC

Red Deer, AB – In the opening match of the season, the RDC Kings and Lethbridge College Kodiaks were both pushed to the limit at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre. With a mixed lineup comprised of veterans and first-year student-athletes, the Kings were up two sets to one but dropped a five set decision to the visiting Kodiaks. 

In a back-and-forth opening set, the teams found themselves even 14 - 14. On the strength of several strong kills by Steven Keating and effective blocking by Jace Martin, the Kings eventually earned a 25 - 23 victory.

The Kodiaks took the second set 25 - 22 but the Kings bounced back.

In the third set, Mark DeWit gave the Kings a 5 – 3 edge with a kill down the middle. From the left side, Jayden Fathers extended the Kings' margin to seven points (17 – 10). Then RDC outscored Lethbridge College 8 - 5 for a 25 - 15 victory.

In a tight fourth set, Steven Keating tied the contest 13 - 13 from the right side but the Kodiaks captured a 25 - 23 decision.

It wasn't the start that the Kings were looking for in the final set. The Kodiaks jumped out to a 6 - 0 lead and the Kings couldn't rally. Lethbridge College won 15 - 12 to claim the match.

With a few key student-athletes on the sidelines, Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha expected others to take the reins. "We pushed at times but any kind of pressure and we folded. With the guys we had out there I expected more," says Schulha. "We had a few veteran guys who were missing - Adam Turlejski and Regan Fathers, and I won't get into why that is the case. They are a big part of this team. We expected other guys to step up in terms of execution and energy, and we didn't do that consistently enough." 

First-year Jayden Fathers finished with 5 kills, 1 service ace and 4 digs while showing a lot of hustle on the court for RDC. "Jayden is a bit of a sparkplug for us," says Schulha. "He was the energy piece that I thought we needed."

Schulha would like to see a higher level of execution in Saturday's rematch. "The couple of mini-runs that the Kodiaks went on in the fourth, is when I thought that our veteran guys would have stepped up a little bit more than what they did. You could tell that the players were overthinking things a little bit," he says. "The mind was working a million miles a minute. We will live and learn and figure it out for tomorrow. We may have a little change tomorrow, who knows, but the guys out there need to perform better when it matters." 

Jace Martin was chosen as the Kings Player-of-the-Game. The six-foot-seven middle from Sylvan Lake stacked up 11 kills, 5 stuff blocks and 2 digs. Carter Hansen received the honour for the Kodiaks, and he totaled 22 kills, 5 digs and 4 stuff blocks.

Jace Martin (11)

"Jace has improved a ton. We are about only 20 practices in, or so, and his improvement is astronomical. We need to keep giving him touches and he will keep getting better and better," says Schulha. "He doesn't have a whole lot of pace on his arm but he can hit over top almost anyone in this league. It's a nice problem to have. We have four pretty solid middles who can play and can get it done." 

In a rematch, the RDC Kings (0 - 1) will host the Lethbridge College Kodiaks (1 - 0) on Saturday, October 13 at 3:00 p.m.