Boulding and Kings sweep Clippers at Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre

Brent Forster - RDC

Red Deer, AB –  A consistent performance from the entire RDC Kings lineup was too much for the visiting Briercrest College Clippers. The Kings started strong, kept their foot on the gas and swept the Clippers (25-16, 25-17 and 25-18).

"It was one of our most complete matches that I can remember. Nice to see," said Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha. "I thought we controlled a lot of that match."

First-year Carter Hills led the Kings' attack with 12 kills. Patrik Toze stacked up 11 kills, four aces, two digs and an assist.

Karym Coleman paced Briercrest College with 15 kills. Bryton Codd chipped in with ten.

"Their two big guns did some damage again, but with the amount of volume that they get, that's going to happen," said Schulha. "We had talked about that and knew that they'd get a lot of volume again, and just tried to eliminate our errors. We can't afford to give free points to a good team." 

Cody Boulding was recognized as the Collegiate Sports Medicine Kings Player-of-the-Game. The six-foot-five middle accumulated four kills, three stuff blocks and two digs.

"He was a middle with Team BC in high school and wanted to try and convert to an outside hitter based on his size and his athleticism. He was doing a lot of that last year when he was mixing a little bit between outside and middle and that becomes hard when you're not getting all the reps at a certain position," said Schulha. 

"At the start of this year with Ben's injury, he was playing more outside and we shifted him back to middle. Now he's getting all those reps in the middle and he's really developed. He's more vocal. He's doing all the right things. Our athleticism in the middle is a big difference right now."

Brady Watchel received the honour for the Clippers, contributing six digs in a hard-working effort.   

The RDC Kings fired five aces and only eight errors. The Clippers had one service ace and eight errors.

"It started on the service line. Our ace to error ratio was very good," said Schulha. "Allowing ourselves to build a rhythm that way on the defensive end and from the service line."

Both sides had four stuff blocks.

"You know it's it a good match, when we were talking the last five to ten points about who deserves player of the match from our guys, and it could have been anybody of the seven guys that were seeing the floor regularly," Schulha said. "That's a nice problem to have."

Setter Thomas Wass totaled 29 assists, ten digs and three kills.   

"Tom did a really good job of locating. He tweaked up his hip yesterday a little bit, so we weren't even sure that he'd go today but he did a good job battling through," explained Schulha. "He did a really good job of spreading the ball around."

Outside hitter Ben Holmes picked up six kills and five digs. Middle Mark DeWit had eight kills, one stuff and one dig.

"I thought our middles were really effective, as well. It forced them into respecting the middle of the court and open things up on the outside for us," said Schulha. "Pretty stable on the first contact piece. Really good defence - thirty-four digs in three sets is pretty high. That's as good as we've looked on the defensive end in quite a while."

The first place RDC Kings (18-4) will complete the regular season against the Medicine Hat College Rattlers (5-16) at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre. On Friday, Feb. 21, the two teams will hit the court at 8:00 pm. Then the Kings and Rattlers will meet at 3:00 pm on Saturday.

The Clippers (14-8) will play a two game series against the Kodiaks (17-4) in Lethbridge.