By Jadon Frank

Briercrest women’s volleyball travelled to Medicine Hat over the weekend with playoff ramification on the line for both teams. After falling behind early in the weekend Briercrest put up a strong fight on Saturday, but fell just short.

On Friday, February 8, the game started strong with Briercrest falling 25-23 in a tight first game, but things quickly went downhill from there and they fell 3-0 (25-23, 25-12, 25-16). All statistical categories heavily favoured Medicine Hat, highlighted by kills 34-15, aces 11-1, digs 33-14 and blocks 9-5. Player of the game was Elly Wendel with a team high four kills and two blocks to go with two digs. Amanda Lundquist had the lone service ace for Briercrest and Brooke Peterson and Starlet Peterson each had a team high five digs. Whitney Zylstra also had two blocks and Erin Anderson had four kills.

On Saturday, February 9, Briercrest fell behind two sets to one after two intense sets before tying the match at two sets a piece with two strong set wins before losing a highly contested fifth set to lose the game 3-2 (25-21, 29-27, 20-25, 14-25, 18-16).

The game was very close with a dead heat for kills at 49 for each team. Briercrest held the edge in every other category nine to seven for service aces, 43-42 for digs and 15-11 for blocks. Player of the game was Starlet Peterson with 11 kills, a team high two service aces 13 digs and one block. Erin Anderson had a team high 13 kills, while also tying for the team high of two service aces with the aforementioned Starlet Peterson, Whitney Zylstra, and Brooklyn Dyck. Brooke Peterson had a game high 15 digs, and Whitney Zylstra had a game high six blocks.

Briercrest will now be travelling to Grande Prairie to compete in a four team qualification tournament Feb 15-16. They will compete with the King’s University College at 8:00 pm MT, with the winner playing against the winner of SAIT and Grande Prairie the following day at 1:00 pm for seeding at the ACAC Championship the Feb. 22-23 at Red Deer College. Games will be streamed online at Sportscanada.tv, and the Briercrest Volleyball facebook page.