Eagles edge men's volleyball Huskies Saturday in five-set battle
It was a weekend of tough lessons for the Keyano Huskies men's volleyball team as they opened the 2021-22 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) regular season.
Though they showed strength in Saturday's five-set game (22-25, 25-21, 25-23, 21-25, 17-15) against The King's University Eagles, errors cost the team points at critical junctures throughout the match.
"Today, I thought it was a good battle," said Anderson King. "Fifth set, can't get too mad about that. Boys are fighting. It was a good game; King's is a great team too.
"Overall for the weekend, I'd say we came in to battle, we learnt a lot. We've just got to get back in the gym, simple as that."
Trey Weinmeier and Cameron Visscher led the way in the kill department with 16 and 13, respectively. Travis Walls added nine kills while Preston Yole contributed seven of his own. King led the way with 10 digs, one ahead of Walls who had nine and two ahead of Weinmeier, who had eight.
Adding to the team's early woes was a tough injury in the first set to starting outside hitter Radek Brzozowski, which they may have to work through in the coming weeks depending on the extent of the injury.
Following the loss, head coach Keegan Kuhr acknowledged that his team played a little better than they had on Friday, but still didn't execute to their full ability. He pointed to blocking and service errors that resulted in nearly two sets worth of points for the Eagles.
"Losing Radek early was a tough one, but guys battled and pushed around that. At the end of the day, we just didn't execute," said Kuhr. "We didn't execute in the fifth set, we didn't execute in other sets when we were up having opportunities to score.
"Our ability to serve and our ability to pass once again really hurt us today."
After losing Brzozowski in the early moment of the set, the Huskies found enough resolve to take the opening set. The Eagles then countered with a pair of set victories, edging the Huskies in a tightly-contested 25-23 third set.
Finding strength to win the fourth set 25-21, the Huskies pushed the Eagles to the distance in the fifth set where some untimely errors left them on the wrong side of the scoreboard.
"We still missed too many serves, we still didn't pass the ball well enough to run an efficient offence," said Kuhr. "Our setters were guessing and then we had to ask our attackers to score out of system a lot more than we wanted to be in serve-receive."
The matchups don't get any easier for the Huskies with the 2-0 Lakeland College Rustlers coming to Fort McMurray and the Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre next weekend.
"We need to be able to work," said Kuhr. "Every team in the North Division, is good enough to beat us.
"If we don't come to work, [this week], the same result is going to keep happening."
The Huskies and Rustlers will do battle on Friday, November 19 at 6:00 p.m. followed by a matchup on Saturday, November 20 at 1:00 p.m.