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CIS consolation final: Tigers win thriller, finish 5th
Courtesy of U of Alberta sports information
EDMONTON (CIS) - The No. 5-seeded Dalhousie Tigers edged the No. 6
Thompson Rivers Wolf Pack for fifth place at the 2009 CIS men's
volleyball championship thanks to a thrilling five-set win (25-23,
25-15, 19-25, 18-25, 15-12) in Sunday afternoon's consolation
final, at the University of Alberta's main gym.
Championship website:
www.cisport.ca/e/championships/m_volleyball/2009
The duel was a rematch of last year's bronze-medal game won by
Thompson Rivers in the first-ever CIS tournament appearance, also
in five sets.
One year after the Wolf Pack overcame a two-set deficit to claim
CIS bronze, history almost repeated itself but this time Dalhousie
was able to hold off the TRU comeback.
"We were talking about (this history). I knew Thompson Rivers was
going to start playing better, and we were waiting and waiting, and
sure enough they came out in that fourth set and they were serving
bombs," said Tigers head coach Dan Ota, whose team was playing in
the national tournament for the 30th straight year. "Sometimes it
takes a team to be pushing you, and we have to realize to push back
and we finally did that in the fifth set.
"I think if nothing else we did learn our lesson from last year.
We all knew what we needed to do, but sometimes when you're up in
that two-game lead, you can't help but relax a bit, because you
know you're almost there. It's tough to fight that human
nature."
Devon Parkinson was named player of the match for Dalhousie after
he led the AUS champions with 14 kills and eight digs. Erik
Montgomery was a force on both sides of the ball as he chipped in
with 11 kills and a team-high six blocks.
Josh Boruck led Canada West bronze medallist Thompson Rivers with
15 kills and chipped in with four digs. Game-MVP honours for the
Wolf Pack went to Conor Eatch, who had five kills, one dig and four
blocks.
Thompson Rivers will host next year's CIS championship and the
future looks bright for the young program that joined Canada West
in 2005-06.
"It's a character builder on a lot of different levels," said TRU
head coach Pat Hennelly about the fifth-place match. "I am hoping
that next year we can learn from that. We're still kind of an
all-or-none team and we need to realize that things can't always be
perfect and things can't always go our way."
Thompson Rivers got off to a red-hot start taking a 7-2 lead in
first frame. They seemingly looked to be in control, leading by as
many as seven in the opening set, but Dalhousie showed great poise
hanging in there with the Wolf Pack.
The Tigers took their first and only lead of the first set at the
22-21 mark and they made a nice little comeback to snag the
momentum.
It was a five-set match, but that first stanza was a key point in
the win for Dalhousie, which looked sluggish to start the game, but
pulled it together.
"They jumped on us early, and I don't think the guys were ready
with our side out game, but we talked about being patient and
waiting for our chances to score," said Ota. "Once we got better
there, we started to do some things well with our block defence. "I
give credit to our guys, we didn't pack it in after the slow start,
and it carried over into the second set."
After getting dominated in the second set, Thompson Rivers woke up
in a big way and take the next two sets. They clearly had the edge
when it came to serving. In particular Colin Jaggard was a force.
He led the Wolf Pack with five aces and he gave the Wolf Pack an
early 7-0 lead in the fourth set as they coasted to a 25-18
win.
Facing the same predicament as they did in the 2008 tournament,
Dalhousie got off to a strong start in the fifth and deciding set.
They got an early lead, and they squashed every spark of momentum,
Thompson Rivers threw their way.
"They were serving bombs. We haven't seen a team serve that well.
Colin Jaggard was serving missles at us. I knew we had to weather a
storm there," said Ota. "(Thompson Rivers) is a heck of a team and
we are very happy we were able to come away with a victory."
STATS LEADERS
Dalhousie
Kills: Devon Parkinson (14), Erik Montgomery (11), Sander Ratsep
(8), Max Burt (8)
Blocks: Sander Ratsep (6), Erik Montgomery (6) Max Burt (5)
Digs: Devon Parkinson (8), Daniel Murray (6)
Assists: Russ Lawrence (38)
Player of the match: Devon Parkinson
Thompson Rivers
Kills: Josh Boruck (15), Gord Perrin (12)
Blocks: Conor Eatch (4), Josh Boruck (3)
Digs: Andy Haley (9), Colin Jaggard (5), Kyle Donen (5)
Assists: Colin Jaggard (34)
Player of the match: Conor Eatch
