 NEWS PHOTO IAN SORENSENBlake Majcher of the Rattlers celebrates a point during college volleyball action at the Snake Pit on Friday. |
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The Medicine Hat College Rattlers men's volleyball team got a glimpse of how good they can be, when they bring their best effort.
While they are battling for the last playoff berth in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, the Rattlers pulled out a split off of the conference's first place team in the Briercrest College Clippers. The teams met Friday and Saturday at the Snake Pit.
Late Friday night, the Rattlers pulled off an impressive sweep of the Clippers by scores of 25-21, 25-20 and 25-22 to end a seven game regular season losing streak. On Saturday, the Clippers had a bounce back effort taking the Rattlers out in four sets 21-25, 25-16, 25-22 and 25-14.
"The split is good," said Rattlers head coach Kyle Pushkarenko. "The bottom line is we out worked them (on Friday), and we got out worked (on Saturday). That was the difference.
"We came out as gangbusters in the first set (on Saturday), and I thought this was going to be a really good, a really tight match. Then, the passing kind of fell apart. We started serving the ball out more and more. That was the big difference."
On Friday, the Rattlers got big efforts from outside hitters Brett Wegner and Joel Kotyk, who both topped the team with 11 kills each. Medicine Hat College also dominated at the net recording 13 stuff blocks as a team, while the Clippers only had four blocks.
Wegner and Kotyk again led the way for the Rattlers on Saturday firing down 12 and 11 kills respectively.
However, the Clippers two outside hitters also had big nights. Scott Lesher and Joel Dyck led their team with 12 and 11 kills respectively. Right side hitter Cody Quiring also added 10 kills to the Clippers' cause.
At the net, Briercrest out blocked the Rattlers 10-7.
"We needed at least one of the two games to keep our playoff hopes alive," said Kotyk. "We were more fired up coming into the match (on Friday) after warm up.
"We just out worked them. (Saturday night), they out worked us."
After Saturday's game, the Clippers continued to lead the ACAC with a 15-5 record. The Rattlers' record sits at 7-11 and they are tied with King's University College for 10th place overall and the final playoff berth in the ACAC.
The Rattlers close their regular season schedule this coming Friday and Saturday as they travel to Edmonton to face the 8-10 Augustana Vikings.
"I am sure we will be able to take two off Augustana knowing we can sweep the top team in the conference in three matches," said Kotyk.
