2008-09 Mid Season Review

January 6th, 2009:

Langley, BC

The first half was very successful. We had a lot of exhibition play against many of the top teams in the country. Alberta (#1), TRU (#9), McMaster (#2) as well as a number of the top NCAA schools USC, Pepperdine, IPFW & Stanford. This exhibition schedule allowed us to mix our lineups and work on our game play. By having this many matches we were able to spend more time in our training sessions on technical skill work. This pattern is one that I though was very productive as we prepared for our Canada West season.

Prior to the season we had hoped to be at 5-3 at the semester break and we've achieved that goal. From that perspective we are happy with our record in league play but we did have an opportunity to have an even better record but let that slip away the last weekend of the semester with two losses to UBC. We had a tough first semester schedule wise with matches against Calgary (#4), Winnipeg (#6) & UBC (#7) but I believe we improved throughout the semester and have set us up for a good second semester run towards the playoffs and the CIS national championships in Edmonton.

The highlight of the semester was the sweep at home of Winnipeg, currently #6 in the country. The Wesmen have been one of the nation's top teams the last few years finishing 1st and 2nd nationally the past two seasons. This year they will be in contention for another national birth and to sweep them was a great weekend for our team. The low light was the final weekend of the semester as we dropped two to UBC at Point Grey. We performed marginally and ran up against a hot T-Bird team. It is important to get splits on the road against top quality opponents and we did not do what it took to earn that split. After the weekend we talked about the importance of taking care of your opportunities in our league. If you fail to win matches that are within grasp you may have to pay a price for it with a tough playoff draw on the road or worse.

Part of our success in the first semester can be attributed to the play of Marc Howatson, Chaim Schalk and Aaron Vandenbrink. As a fifth year setter a lot of pressure has been put on Chaim Schalk to lead this young team on and off the court. Chaim had his best semester as a Spartan and our record is a reflection of that performance. With the graduation of Steve Rogalsky we had a big hole to fill on the right side and Aaron Vandenbrink has done a great job. Aaron has been fighting a bad back all semester but was still able to perform very well allowing our offence to balance the court and get production from all attacking positions. This semester Marc Howatson has developed into a great "go to" attacker for us. Without Rogalsky we needed someone to step up onto the role of our side out wing player and Marc has done a great job in that role. He is in the top ten in the conference in attack efficiency (7th), kills per game (5th), points per game (5th) and aces per game (4th). Statistically Marc has been our best player in the first semester but with our system no one can operate without the contributions of the whole group. We believe in balance and skill and in that type of a system the importance of the whole group cannot be measured by statistics. Paul Lindemulder had a very good semester as our "control" left side player improving every weekend culminating in being our best player the UBC weekend. Rudy Verhoeff and Josh Doornenbal were fantastic in the middle for us this semester and they drew a lot of attention from our opponents allowing for some attacking opportunities for our outside hitters. Andrew Hawkes, our captain, had a good semester as our libero. He is the only remaining player for the 2006 CIS championship season and his leadership has been invaluable to this group. Our second unit has been great this semester both from a training context and a support role off the bench. Mikiah Schalk, Ben Ball and Jarrod Offereins have all given great lifts to the team off the bench throughout the semester and are sure to be major factors in our second half.

The second half of the season is going to be very interesting as the Canada West is as tight as it has been in years with only Alberta separating from the pack as the clear leader and Saskatchewan and Regina being left behind. That leaves seven teams fighting for six playoff spots with every position up for grabs. It will truly come down to who performs the best this semester.

We really don't have any easy matches this semester due to the competitiveness of the league. The three match weekends that are most important are Manitoba (Jan 9 & 10), Thompson Rivers (Jan 23 & 24) and Brandon (Jan 30 & 31). These weekends are so huge as all three teams will be fighting for playoff spots and all three are very tough teams to beat. Fortunately for us Manitoba and TRU are in our gym and we are tough to beat at the Enarson. If I was to identify one weekend as the pivot for the semester it would be the TRU weekend. Currently we have very similar records at the break. The only difference is that we've not played Alberta yet. That weekend will largely determine if we have a chance at hosting a playoff series or not. TRU was banged up most of the first semester and are just coming off a tournament victory over perennial contender in the NCAA Pepperdine. They will be very tough to beat but a challenge we are looking forward to.

As always in Canada West every weekend is a dog fight with great teams. Every game is both winnable and loseable and all are important, especially second semester. We are really looking forward to getting on the floor in our attempt to earn a trip to Edmonton to compete for the CIS National Championship.