Trojans rally to beat Clippers

CALGARY, ALTA., (Oct. 13, 2018) — SAIT Trojans men's volleyball outside Tyler Latu'ila put the finishing touches on his team's come-from-behind victory in style Saturday afternoon.

The fourth-year Bachelor of Business Administration student from Auckland, New Zealand fired back-to-back aces to end the fifth set, as his Trojans rallied to beat the Briercrest College Clippers 3-2 (18-25, 22-25, 25-17, 25-20, 15-9) in their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) game played at SAIT's Campus Centre.

"In the third set, I think they let down a little bit," said Latu'ila after the game. "When you're up two, it's very easy to let your emotions come down, so we capitalized on that. After that, we were able to get some momentum and play our style of game."

SAIT stays perfect early on in the season, moving to 3-0. Briercrest goes home unhappy with an 0-2 mark.

These teams met in one of the ACAC's championship semifinals last season, with the Trojans coming out on top 3-0. Both teams were aware of the history.

"It's massive for us, getting these two wins. It sets us up well for the rest of the season," said Latu'ila, who recorded 14 kills in the match.

Friday night, the Trojans started well on their way to a 3-1 win, but Saturday was the opposite. A slow start, and Briercrest's blazing fast offense put them in a hole early in Set 1.

SAIT played marginally better in Set 2, but still came out on the losing end to go down 2-0.

After winning Set 3 to extend the match, Latu'ila says his team felt that there was still plenty of game left.

Set 4 was controlled by SAIT until the very end when the Clippers made a run to keep things close. The Trojans were able to do enough to hang on for the win and head into Set 5 with momentum squarely on their side.

"Going into the fifth set, everyone was feeling confident," Latu'ila stated. "We felt like it was our game."

An 8-3 lead for the Trojans as the teams switched sides quieted the loud Briercrest crowd in attendance. The Clippers then when on a run and closed the gap to 10-8.

However, the Trojans were able to get a timely sideout, and then finished things off with Latu'ila on the line – the first ace coming off a mishit, the second an absolute rocket off the hands of Bryton Codd and out.

"The second last one, we came out of a timeout they called to slow us down a bit and throw off our momentum. It worked, but I just went with it anyways," he laughed. "The last one, my toss was off, but I just ripped it. We were up 14-9 at that point, so you have to let it go."