Toze and Kings drop visiting Rattlers in four

Brent Forster - RDC

Red Deer, AB – The Red Deer College Kings took charge of the majority of the match against the Medicine Hat College Rattlers and dropped the visitors in four sets (25-14, 22-25, 25-16 and 25-22). It was their ninth win in a row.

"It's not the complete match that we wanted, but that is why there is tomorrow," said Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha. "A win is a win."

The RDC Kings controlled the opening set. They led 12-6, 21-11 and eventually won by 11 points (25-14).

"The first [set] was great. It was exactly what we had game planned for, in terms of putting some significant service pressure on them, forcing them into some errors and playing fairly clean volleyball, limiting the amount of free points that we gave them. Then we did the exact opposite in the second," said Schulha.

"We ended up giving them, I want to say 16 of their points, something like that. Which against a team with any kind of weapons, you can't do or you're going to lose. If we could have cleaned it up at the end of the second, we could have probably snuck it out." 

Toze (11)

Kings outside hitter Patrik Toze, who was named the Collegiate Sports Medicine Kings Player-of-the-Game, pounded 21 kills, along with two aces, one assist and one dig, and hit for 0.545 per cent efficiency. RDC first-year outside hitter Carter Hills contributed 16 kills, six digs, four service aces and one assist. Setter Thomas Wass totaled 43 assists.

Dexter Mackie was recognized as the top performer for the visitors, recording seven kills, two assists, one dig and a stuff. Jovan Stepanovic accumulated 11 kills, five digs and one assist. Aleksa Zivic had eight kills. Rattlers setter Nicola Sreckovic stacked up 29 assists.

"They have some weapons. Their no. 2 (Mackie), their middle, is a little bit of an awkward timing guy. He jumps well and gets a little bit higher than what we're used to, so our middles didn't do a very good job of waiting a little bit longer," explained Schulha. "It's hard to do when you're seeing it going middle to try and delay. It's a bit of a reminder when you see it across the net from you. They are better than what their record shows."

The Kings fired ten aces. Zivic had both of the Rattlers' service aces. 

"Ten aces, in theory as a coach, you say an ace to error ratio of one to two is usually okay. We were within that, but we missed 18 in four sets. That's way too many especially against a team that fights it on receive like these guys," said Schulha. "We gave them way too many free points throughout the course of the match and a lot of that was missing our serves and the attack error piece."

This past week the RDC Kings moved up three spots in the national rankings to fourth in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA).

The RDC Kings and Lethbridge College Kodiaks (19-4) are even with 38 points in the south standings. SAIT (17-7) is next with 34 points. 

The Kings (19-4) and Rattlers (6-17) will compete on Saturday at 3:00 pm at RDC in the last match before playoffs.

"I expect us to be better and more complete tomorrow," said Schulha.