Wass diversifies offence in Kings' sweep of Clippers

Brent Forster - RDC

Red Deer, AB - The Red Deer College Kings were energized early and downed the visiting Briercrest College Clippers in three sets (25-15, 25-21 and 26-24) at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre. 

Colby Brochu Photography

Several areas of the RDC Kings' game were effective including the play from their middles. Adam Turlejski finished with seven kills, two digs and one ace. Mark DeWit recorded eight kills, three digs, two assists and one ace. 

"Having Adam back in the middle as a legitimate threat is nice. We talked about having four pretty legitimate middles in this league, so we have some options," says Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha. "But nice to see Adam and Mark be able to go at it together, it's been awhile. Both were healthy and that's got to be a strength for us moving forward."

Libero Isaiah Stime (5) Colby Brochu Photography

Regan Fathers had another strong match with 18 kills, keeping the Clippers' defenders guessing. "Regan did a much better job from the service line and not allowing himself to get frustrated there. He made some very smart choices with the attack piece. He's going to make some errors with the volume he gets but tipping some balls, working off the outside hand - all of those things," says Schulha. "Some of the times he's just swinging and hoping for the best but I thought he did a much better job of mixing his shots and teams know how hard he can hit, and what angles he can hit. A lot of times defences will be on their heels and I thought that he exploited that pretty well."

Regan Fathers (1) Colby Brochu Photography

The Kings trailed in the third set, but dug deep and found a way to win. "We had that four point lead and then got down 23-21. They had their spin servers going pretty hot. With that said, I thought that we were passing pretty steady for the most part," says Schulha. "We weren't locating our attackers for that small stretch but it made us look like geniuses to have Marcus Roflik go in and serve a couple of tough ones, getting a couple of overpasses. It was nice to see us disciplined at the net. With the speed that they run their offence to the outsides, blocking probably isn't how you win a match against them. We could have gotten a few more blocks here and there, especially with how well we were serving in the first couple of sets."

Thomas Wass was selected as the Kings Player-of-the-Game, stacking up 42 assists, six digs and four kills. Mitchell Erickson received the award for the Clippers, accumulating eight kills, four digs and three aces. 

"I thought that Tom had his best match of the season, in terms of spreading out the offence and the player-of-the-game was well deserved today," says Schulha. "Forty-two assists in three sets is quite a bit. He did a good job in terms of mixing things. His connection with our outsides was significantly better than last weekend."

JJ Graham (18) Colby Brochu Photography

Jonathan (JJ) Graham had 11 kills and Ben Holmes finished with nine. 

On Saturday, the second place Kings (13-4) will entertain the Clippers (7-8) at 3:00 p.m. at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre.