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Other Sports

March 19, 1993

DC Spikers Win Silver Medal Honours

Tough Loss P Take for the Douglas Royals in BCCAA Provincial Finals at ay Western!

by Elaine Leong

Dig, grunt, set, grunt, grunt, spike: whistle side-out!

Theseare the soundsand grunts of four teams of well-oiled machines playing on the courts of Trinity

estern University.

OnMarch5 &6, fourteams took on two highly competitive matches in hopes to win the Gold Medal Honours in the BOCAA League.

After recently defeating the Okanagan Lakers in league-play, the Douglas‘Royals were set up against them againas the Lakers had earned 2nd place in the leagueand Douglas, 3rd. It was a tough match for the Royalsasitseemed thatneither team were up to playing play-off level on the defense.

The first line-ups for the Royals consisted of Paul Chu (S), Rob Gowe (P), Jeff Foo (M), Jason Baxter (P), Fred Foo (P) and Adam Faris (M), meanwhilethe Laker lineupincluded MikeJohnston(S), Jeremy W (M), Trevor Nicolas (P), Scott a ), oe Sodero (M), son aed oe the Royals taking a lead of 6-2 at the end of the first serviceround. The gamebrokeoutto a tough pace for the Royals as oO} ene the lead 10-9 at the end of the third service round. Douglas ’s mistakes allowed for the Lakers to sail toa win of 15-12.

Game 2 , the Royals were determined to get sideout from the Lakers. At the end of the first service round, the score stayed at 5-1 in the Lakers’ favour.

Itwasatthis time thatthe Royals coach Brian Newman called for a time-out. The request was denied by the second referee as the first referee hadalready blown the whistle for the Lakers to serve. The confusion in the

between Newman and the official caused Sodero to hesitate in serving, wondering whether the time-out wound be called or not. Newman and assistant coach Blake Bevanstarted ing for the Five- second call for the delay in service butthefirstreferee had already blown the whistle for service a second time clearly indicating to the gym that a time-out wound not be called. Chu of the Royals had approached the first referee. Newman and Bevan continued disputi

g the call and

received a red card which gave the side-out to the opposition.

From hereonin, Douglas served tough shortserves whichwereaimed to hit before the Lakers’ attack line. The Lakers had no em keeping the ball up in the air but that was all they could doas the from the receiver flew wild, forcing setter Johnston to give a performance of

Several its were racked up quickly for the Royals. By the end of second service round, the Royals made an amazing comeback closing the 1-5 margin to a 8-8 tie with the Lakers.

Asanotherservice round turned about, the Royals took another 7

ints to win the game 15-10.

Game 3 took more than 30 minutes to play, as it went around four and a half service rounds. This was enough time to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of both teams.

The Lakers took a lead of 5-1 again.

Every point that was scored by both teams was well-earned as the attacks were smashed down deep in the opposition’s court.

It almost seemed that the momentum fortheRoyals had shifted to the Eshmor gs a Soci toa Bihenidebkae

Then Jason Baxter cameonto the court and displayed the power of his attacks. Chu also at the time varying the Royals offense by tipping the ball over on the second hit.

The were so determined tocome that they held the Laker score at 13 for almost two service rounds.

Finally, the margin was closed down to 16-15 for the Lakers. Whata come back!

An error in the last split second call “out-of bounds” by the Royals, concerning the Laker attack, bro the score to 17-15 for the a

It was a difficult loss for the Royals but it proved that they would not give up!

Game 4 saw another struggle for the Royals. The whistles stopped the flow of the game as towels were constantly needed to wipe up the slug trails of the players. It was a break in the game. This gave the ee the follo ing rall

Braden Gabert st (lft) and Jeff Foo (middie) are b eucoeeettt in block the ball after an attack by Laker's Trevor Nicholls (right

Okanagan’s communication died downamong the players which allowed theRoyalstoaim theirattacks with extra confidence.

It was also in this game that Douglas was finally able to adapt to the speed and power of the attacks. Douglas i lsat ‘confides in themselves afewawesomekills, the team upped the score from a 8-8 tie toa 11-9 lead and finally a 15-10 win.

This was the deciding game for the match. came out even stronger than ever before and prepared themselves for their own first five game match of the entire season.

started badly for the Lakers as delayed the ee ees Thiessen had taken his team away to the “Coaches Room” during the 2 minutebreak. Thebench wasassessed witha yellow card for time violation.

Coach Newman was pleased withthe apes se: Gowe and Baxter of the

“It was good,”

commented. “We stuck with our Fit

game planand it worked. In the third ¥

where there was a margin of — 12-0 or 12-2 [for the Lakers] or something like that and almost winning it, I mean we lost 15-17, but it was a big turning point . And Oo just lost it!”

The Royals handled the last game quite well, proving that they

were worthy enough for the second consecutive year to com in the gold medal match. Douglas won 15- 10to wintheSth game to win theover all match.

The fo! match placed 4th ranked Columbia Bible College Concords against top ranked TWU Played in TW Though the match was

in TWU turf where tely 1000 fans cheered on deirhutiae trantthwenetll high competition. The Concords missed a few crucial points in the first game which the took quxt ax ered Spartans

TheS had takena lot out of the Concords in the first gameand theraw: of thefirstgamenever ee

won the match seed eich as tes wareaned cr by their fans and focused on their

goal to “bce Douglas in the Medal match.

The ing day, seeing that Columbia Bible Concords werecompeting in the Bronze Medal Match agai Lakers, it was an indication to Fans that their team would be Spartans with their 3/4 of the gym fan club yelling out their

Unfortunately, the game the previous night was a hair-raisi was not.

TheRoyals warm-up wasa most unusual one. The players used their half of the volleyball court to play an informal gameof Rugby. The

Pepe - was to relax the guys and also take

the crowd's attention away from for the “Tt was planned, good for us, funand and to take the fans away from the TWU team,” Newman explained. “And it worked!” Also the Royals had chosen to

uw start the game off by playing on TWU’s traditional side of the court,

thus placing themselves in front of

a. the Spartan fans and vice versa. But

the game quickly shifted back to the Spartans. ;

Fred Foo (left) : OOOOOOO0O! A missile! It’s MINE, Jeff! (Jett Foo - right)

Now, it can’t be said for sure whether the informal warm-up and — courts worked or not, for

pacer share =

to Spartan coach mn Pike, but they Fm recovered and focused on

“I was by the warm- ec meer toate not the traditional warm-up,” Pike commented. “ And also taking our side of the court kinda threw us off. But, m my gu guys are fairly focused.”

ith that, the match started and

TWU tooka strong early leadas they

layed tough. It was difficult for

as several net calls were

made by the second referee in favour of TWU.

The Royals gave the Spartans tougher competition as each following game progressed. However as the Spartans won the first game 15-8, the momentum had already shifted to the TWU team. Several technical mistakes on the Royals’ part worked against themselvesin the match. Theintensity that was needed for the Royals to make a comeback was lacking

severely Though the Royals managed to shut out the screams and the cheers

not hold down the intensity of the Spartan attacks. Newman thought that his guys mighthavebeenburnedin this match. The Trinity Western S not only won the match (15-8, 15-5, 15-10) but also earned the position to play in the Nationals for the second

Theloss wasdueto poor passing and too many missed serves. Those kinds of little mistakes showed the Royals were not playing “provincial playoffs skill level”.

Both Newman and Pike were surprisedat the Royals’ performance.

“I was surprised!” Pike exclaimed. “Thad anticipateda harder game! We thought Douglas would’ve come out stronger. I mean, Douglas College has a tradition of being a strong, team. They’re very talented. But, we were fired up and they weren't!

“It was disappointing tolose the way we did,” Newman stated.

Chu made some plays, again varying the Royals’ attack but it seemed that they needed much more. Rookie Peter Konopacki enjoyed a competitive game. Healso helped in covering the floor against the opposition. Gowe, J.Foo, Faris and Baxter all put up their efforts in defense as did Gabert, F.Foo, and William Maclean.

Forthe Spartans, All-Canadians Darryn Wiersma and Tim Demant contributed several kills to the TWU record. Chris Engbers and Russ Schofield also were outstanding for theS ‘

Those were the final two games of the 92-93 season for the Dou, Royals as the TWU Spartans knocked their chances of competing in the CCAA Nationals.

“It would’ve been nice to end the season with a win, but still when you look back, we had a oe season. We played really well, we did securea = play-offspot. There weresix team fi Set nana Newman con and added, my feel good that the players have improved over the season.”