Strong start leads to win for Trojans

October 26, 2018

CALGARY, ALTA., (Oct. 20, 2018) — The SAIT Trojans women's volleyball team started their weekend off on the right foot Friday night.

 

The Trojans started strong en route to a 3-1 (25-20, 25-17, 32-34, 25-21) win over the visiting Red Deer College Queens in their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) contest played at SAIT's Campus Centre.

 

"It feels good," said Trojans middle Simran Dhami (5th year, Golden, BC, Bachelor of Business Administration). "It felt really good to play and beat a really competitive team. Red Deer has always been strong, so it was nice to get that win."

 

SAIT improves to 4-2 on the season, while the Queens fall 1-4.

 

"After last week, we talked about the need to start strong," Dhami added. "Our biggest thing today was to start strong, mentally, and put the ball away early and I think we did a good job of that."

 

After battling neck and neck through the first set, the teams were tied at 20-20. It's then that SAIT went on a 5-0 run to close out the set.

 

In Set 2, the Trojans got out to an early 12-7 lead when Elly Prince (3rd year, Calgary, Legal Assistant) followed up a Jadyn Leong (2nd year, Calgary, Emergency Medical Technician) kill with an ace.

 

Minutes later, that lead turned to 20-12 before Red Deer went on a run of their own to cut the lead to 20-17.

 

That's as close as they would get, however, as SAIT rattled off the next five points to clinch the set and go up 2-0.

 

Red Deer took Set 3 34-32 in a marathon set that featured errors on both sides of the net. Dhami said her team had a chat following that setin order to keep them on track.

 

"I got in the circle and said, 'That's what they have to do to beat us'," she said. "That was the mentality that everyone had – that was that Red Deer was going to have to do a lot to win tonight."

 

Leong led the Trojans with a game-high 17 kills to go along with 15 digs and three service aces. Dhami added five blocks.

 

Emma Holmes led the Queens with 10 kills.

 

The teams face off again tomorrow night in Red Deer at 6pm.

 

 

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