O'Dwyer reaches milestone in win over Broncos

CALGARY, ALTA., (Jan. 25, 2020) - SAIT Trojans women's volleyball head coach Art O'Dwyer celebrated a milestone Saturday night.

The longtime head coach earned a 3-1 (24-26, 25-17, 25-11, 25-22) victory over the Olds College Broncos in his 200th Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) game pacing the sidelines for the Trojans.

"I didn't think it had been that many, to be honest," O'Dwyer laughed. "It's a lot of games, and it's been a privilege to be able to coach at this level for that long. What I thought of right away was all the kids who have gone through here. I have coached 14 kids 200 times - that's a lot of people."

SAIT has now won four-in-a-row with weekend sweeps of the Broncos this weekend, and the Medicine Hat College Rattlers. Their record now stands at 6-14, while Olds falls to 2-16.

"You can talk all you want about who's better on paper, but you have to go something about it," O'Dwyer added. "We have to build some confidence, and we have to learn to compete and what it takes to do that. Olds gave us a good run, but we showed maturity and got the job done."

In the match, the Trojans started slowly and it cost them.

"It was similar to Friday's first set - slow and quiet, kind of plodding along," said O'Dwyer. "We just made some mistakes that we didn't get away with."

After losing the initial set, SAIT turned up the heat and took the next three.

"We put pressure on them and served really well," O'Dwyer stated. "I thought we did a good job of earning the points when we needed them."

Jadyn Leong (3rd year, Calgary, Business Administration) led the Trojans with 16 kills and three service aces. Teammate Brooke Litwinski (1st year, Calgary, Journalism) added 11 kills and 10 digs.

Tabitha Martin paced the Broncos with seven kills and four aces.

The Trojans return to action next weekend with a home-and-home series against Red Deer College - Friday night at home, Saturday night in Red Deer.