Cascade roll over Thunder By Lucas Timmons timm0051@algonquincollege.com March 12, 2009
The University of the Fraser Valley Cascades defeated the Algonquin Thunder 3-0 (25-22, 25-17, 25-21) in the opening match of the 2009 Canadian Colleges Athletic Association men’s volleyball championship at Keyano College on Thursday. The Cascades cruised to the straight set victory, never looking threatened by Algonquin’s attack. “It was a great start,” said Cascades coach Greg Russell “Looks like there was no real nerves at all. We executed what we talked about. It was great to see.” The Thunder and Cascades met in the bronze medal match of the 2007 CCAA finals. Algonquin took home the medal in a very competitive five sets. For the some of the Cascades players, today’s result was vindication. “We had six or seven guys on the team two years ago,” said Russell. “We went 16-14 with them in the fifth set. It was definitely in our minds.” Fraser Valley stormed out to quick leads in the first and second sets. The Thunder were unable to match pace and were forced to play from behind for the majority of the contest, something the Ontario Colleges Athletics Association champions were not familiar with. "The reality is there’s a difference in the conference they play in and we play in,” said Thunder coach Max Larrivee. “They play at this level the whole year. B.C. was a really tight, competitive league. Our league was much weaker. “Our guys had a hard time adjusting to this level over the period of one match. That was the difference in the end. You have to give credit to UFV, they were quicker to the ball than we were in every situation.” “We came out firing,” said CCAA All-Canadian Derek Fletcher. “[Algonquin’s] a great team I just don’t think they were pushed too much all year. We came out serving hard, a couple of our guys got some serving runs and we dug the ball really well tonight.” Fletcher led all players with 12 kills. Jonathan Sloane paced the Thunder with 10. Daryl Wiebe had seven service aces for the Cascades. “They made us uncomfortable,” said Larrivee. “We started thinking way beyond the point we were playing or thought about what happened before. We had to slow things down and we didn’t.” The Thunder played a much better third set and were in a position to try and force a fourth set. A suspect carry call and a blown call on a block ended Algonquin’s chances. “We lost the match, we got beat,” said Larrivee. “[But] we had one opportunity to get back into the match, and it was taken away from us. The outcome of the third set wasn’t decided by the players, but, that’s part of the game. UFV scored 73 of 75 on their own.” Algonquin will face the Seneca Sting on Friday, while Fraser Valley will move on to face the Grant MacEwen Griffins on the gold medal side of the bracket. The Thunder defeated the Sting 3-0 on Feb. 27 for the gold medal in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association finals. Despite the loss, Larrivee is still optimistic about Algonquin’s chances. “A measure of a team is the way they respond to a beat,” he said. “It’s the way they get back up, dust themselves off and come back and play at the level of play we feel we wanted to demonstrate to the rest of Canada. “It’s character-building time. This is where character is revealed and this is where we see how guys adjust and respond to adversity. Nothing is decided.” |
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