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The College of the Rockies volleyball teams will have their lengthiest road trip of the year this weekend.
The Avalanche travel to Victoria to take on the Camoson Chargers Friday and Saturday.
“It’s a tough trip. I don’t tell the girls that because it is what you make of it, but you’ve got a day-and-a-half on a bus or on a ferry,” said women’s coach Lisa Ramsey, who will take advantage of every stop the bus makes by having her athletes get out and move around.
The women Chargers (4-9) enter the weekend tied for sixth place in the BCCAA, but outside of a playoff spot because they have one more loss than Douglas College.
The Camosun fellows (6-7) also have incentive because they are in fifth place, but only a couple of points out of third.
Neither Avalanche team, on the other hand, can qualify for the year-end tournament: the guys are 0-11, the gals 1-10.
“They’re all pride games from here on in,” said men’s coach Chris Jenkins. “What we want to do is go out and show the other teams the type of program that we have, and that we deserve to be in the league.”
Jenkins said the Chargers are a good example of how high competitiveness in the league has rocketed this season.
“They won the league last year, and they have all their returning players and here they are (fifth). That gives you an idea of how much the league has improved this year,” said Jenkins.
A primary reason for that improvement is several BCCAA schools are pushing for inclusion in Canadian Interuniversity Sport next year. In order to be good enough, they threw more money at recruiting.
Jenkins said it’s still possible to compete in recruiting without breaking the bank, noting much of it can be done by e-mail.
His biggest focus for next year will be getting in a top-flight setter, the likes of which they saw last weekend then the Avs hosted the undefeated UBC-Okanagan Heat.
Jenkins said UBC-O setter Preston Tucker was the best player he’s seen this year.
“He was kind of a show unto himself,” said Jenkins. “He gets to every ball and he pushes out exactly where a guy can hit it. He’s just got such good hands that the ball goes out and just seems to stop right where it’s supposed to.”
The Heat won in straight sets on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Still, Jenkins said the Avalanche played well.
“The coach afterwards said we put up a bigger fight than their previous opponents (VIU), who were the fifth-ranked team in Canada,” said Jenkins.
“At the same time, it’s a good opportunity for us to take a look and see what we are going to have to do to get our team to that level. There are a number of contrast points that we can take a look at and try to address, especially going into next year given that we aren’t going to be making the playoffs this year.”
On his own side, Jordan Wagner (13 kills) and Cody Cuthill (14) were the top performers.
“They were able to take a medium set and turn it into a point somehow; to take a play that’s in trouble and convert it into a point from our side,” Jenkins said, adding that Cuthill was the best hitter for either team.
“He’s only learning to hit now this year, and learning how to play volleyball so he’s got a tremendous future.”
The women were also swept in straight sets both days.
“On the most part, everybody improved,” said Ramsey. “Again, they went in expecting (the 11-0 Heat) to be this amazing team that just came in and was drilling the ball and creating craters in the floor and stuff. I was like, ‘You guys really need to get over that. They’re still just females playing a sport.’”
The Avs passed well, with most players exiting with a better-than 1.7 out of 3 rating.
“That had been a huge goal, because we’d been struggling with that and we were going up against a team that was so good. I honestly thought they would have served us off the court, and they didn’t. Overall, serve-receive was better.”
Tonia Bunnah was doing so well in that regard Friday that the Heat just stopped sending the ball her way.
Allison Pepper wound up getting lots of attention — not that she noticed.
“She said, ‘I think they served to me three times, that’s it.’ I looked at her, thinking she’s joking because she had three in the last little bit of the game,” said Ramsey. “She was dead serious. She thought she got served three or four times. Yeah, she had the most serves.”
In the second and third set alone, she had received 15.
Ramsey also liked her athletes’ defensive transition, coming up with 38 digs on Friday. They also got 20 points on kills.
“Against a top team like that, that’s pretty damned good,” said Ramsey.
The next day, the Avs got some big digs.
“They stepped in and weren’t scared. Rachel (Cohen) went out at one point and she dug a ball from basically the best hitter in Canada. She hit a ball straight down the line and Rachel just dug it up like nothing.”
Ramsey hopes that strong play continues into their third-last weekend of the season.
“They know that they just played with the top team, and they did dig some of those balls,” she said. “Hopefully the confidence level has risen up a little bit and they’ve been able to realize they’re here and they’re doing pretty good as a team.”
