The Kings and Queens sweep the Broncos in their opening matches of the season
Red Deer, October 13, 2023 – The Red Deer Polytechnic Kings and Queens sweep the Olds College Broncos. The Queens would take their match in three sets but the Kings needed five to pull off the victory.
The Queens were led by outside-hitter Lauren Junck (Bachelor of Arts in Psychology) and middle-blocker Autumn Roos (Bachelor of Education) who both finished the match with six kills.
Outside-hitter Noah Carlson (Open Studies) picked up where he left off last season as he finished with 14 kills to lead the Kings in that category.
See below for more information regarding each match.
Women's Volleyball – Olds College Broncos 0 at Queens 3
With high expectations for the season, the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens tamed the Olds College Broncos by defeating the visiting team 3-0 in the opening match of the season.
The Queens would open up their season by scoring the match's first point off a kill from outside-hitter Emma Holmes (Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences). At the halfway point of the set, the Broncos had a slight 13-12 lead over the Queens. But after a couple of good spin serves from the Polytechnic's outside-hitter Lauren Junck (Bachelor of Arts in Psychology), the home team would pull ahead 18-16, which led to an Olds College timeout. Out of the short break, the Broncos would score three consecutive points to take a 19-18 lead. But the Queens pushed in the late stages of the opening game to take the set 25-22.
Junck's great serving continued into the next set as she would open the second with an ace to give the Queens the early lead. Five serves in a row by middle-blocker Abby Lowe (Bachelor of Education) sparked the Queens to a 7-1 lead which is when Broncos Head Coach Sammy Fraser decided to call a timeout. Olds College would continue to battle despite being down by more than 10 points. But it was the Polytechnic who would take the second set 25-14.
The Queens would continue their strong serving game in the third set to give them an early five-point lead. But the Broncos would slowly diminish this lead as the set went on to make it much closer. Some great serving by outside-hitter Morgan Boisvert sparked the Queens to jump out to a five-point lead at the halfway point of the set before Fraser called the Broncos a timeout. Junck would take the match for the Queens as she earned the kill on the final point of the game to give her team the 25-16 third-set victory.
Head Coach Talbot Walton explained the Queens just needed to use the first set to shake off the rust.
"Once we realized we needed to just play volleyball, the girls got into the flow of how we are supposed to serve and attack. Once we made that transition in our game, I think the pieces just fell into place.
The players of the match were awarded to Queens Autumn Roos (Bachelor of Education) and Broncos Camryn Macdougald. Roos finished with six kills and Macdougald finished with four.
Both team's will have a bye tomorrow and will be back in action next weekend. The Broncos will host the Briercrest College Clippers and the Queens will head to Calgary to take on the SAIT Trojans next Friday.
Men's Volleyball– Olds College Broncos 2 at Kings 3
After winning the first set, the Red Deer Polytechnic Kings would drop the next two but managed to win the fourth and final set to take the match against the Olds College Broncos.
After a strong ACAC Championship last season, outside-hitter Noah Carlson (Open Studies) would open the Kings season and the match with his first kill of the year out of the back row. Outside-hitter Colby Nemeth (Bachelor of Commerce) on his first serve of the season would put the ball to the floor to give himself his first ace of the season. Nemeth led the ACAC in aces last season. The Kings would jump out to an early 7-2 lead which caused Broncos Head Coach Ryan Marsden to use one of his two timeouts of the set. Following the short break, the Kings would just give up the one point as they went on a seven-point run to jump out to a massive 14-3 lead to force Olds College to use up their final timeout of the set. Outside-hitter Carter Hills (Bachelor of Kinesiology) would pick up an ace of set point to help his Kings run away with a 25-10 victory in the first game of the match.
But the Broncos would quickly put that first set behind them and come out to fight in the second set as it was a back-and-forth battle to start the second. After shaking off the rust, Olds College managed to force Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha to call a timeout after the Broncos leaped to a three-point lead late in the second set. But the Polytechnic battled back and managed to take a one-point lead into an Olds timeout. The Broncos would end up fighting their way back and taking the second set 26-24 after a Kings attacking error.
At the end of two sets, Broncos outside-hitter Matheus Franca led his team with eight kills and Carlson from the Kings had seven.
The Polytechnic would shake off this close set defeat and jump out to an early lead thanks to some great serving from the home team. Once again, the Broncos would continue to fight despite being down in the set and found themselves down by one before the Kings called a timeout. This was thanks to some incredible offence that worked their way around a Kings net presence that is quite athletic and tall. After a huge block on the left side, the Broncos found themselves up 23-19 as they went into the Kings final timeout of the set and picked up two kills to end the set 25-20. One of those kills came from Franca, who was the match leader in kills after the third set with 15.
The Broncos would continue their momentum into the fourth set and were playing solid volleyball. They were really digging deep on defence and were swinging away on offence. But after some key substitutions from the Kings, they managed to crawl back into the set and found themselves down by just one. Middle-blocker Ben Atwood (Bachelor of Applied Science in Agribusiness) would spark his team with three straight serves to regain their four-point lead. However, the Kings were not going without a fight and would go on a run that put them up 23-21 and ultimately, would take the fourth 25-22 to force a fifth and final set.
The Kings would explode to a 6-1 lead after Hill's 10th kill of the match that was given to him off a Broncos passing error. Ultimately, the Polytechnic would not look back and ran away with the fifth set as they defeated Olds 15-10.
Head Coach Aaron Schulha explained this was definitely not how he predicted the night to go.
"It was a weird one for sure. We came out extremely hot in the first but we knew going into the second set that they were a much better team than they showed in the opening game which was evident throughout the rest of the match. In hindsight, it was nice to have 13 of our 14 dressed players contribute as it took everyone to beat a good Olds team."
The players of the game were awarded to Broncos Mattheus Franca with 18 kills on the night and Kings Noah Carlson who finished his night with 14.
These two teams will be off tomorrow but will be back in action next weekend. The Broncos will welcome the Briercrest College Clippers to town with the Kings heading to Calgary to take on the SAIT Trojans.