For Release: March 3, 2010


Kamloops, BC—The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men’s volleyball team is entering the 2010 Canada West Final Four with one philosophy: “live in the now”.

The WolfPack enter this weekend’s event in Edmonton with the huge task of meeting the two time defending league and national champion Alberta Golden Bears. The Bears have beaten the WolfPack in the teams previous 12 regular season and 2 post season matches.

The teams haven’t met though since the first weekend of the regular season when the Bears swept TRU at the U of A. “ We are playing better,” says WolfPack head coach Pat Hennelly. “ I don’t get a sense of where Alberta is at except that they have a great coach and have a great program. They have lots of experienced players. But I think our growth has been phenomenal since the first half.”

The WolfPack are 8 and 3 since the start of the calendar year. This includes a 2-1 win in the Canada West quarterfinals last weekend in Brandon. Add to that, a third place finish at their McDonalds International Tournament during the Christmas break and Hennelly admits he’s pleased with the way his team has been playing.

“Performing on the road, against ranked teams, we are playing some of our best volleyball.” But Hennelly is well aware of how his team has done historically against the Golden Bears. “ There’s a psychological part of that. And with them playing at home it’ll be even tougher.”

The TRU coach is happy being pitted against Alberta. “ I like this match up. If we have any hope of winning a National Title, we have to measure ourselves against a team like this. As a team, we need to prove that we can win on the road against a tough team. This is the right challenge at the right time.”

Hennelly says it’s hard not to respect what Terry Danyluk and the Golden Bears have put together over the years. “Alberta is good enough that if you want to consider yourself a top team, you need to prepare to play them if you aspire to be National Champions. That has been our goal this year. They are a roadblock—but they have been for everyone over the last few years. There’s a saying that you aren’t the best until you beat the best and they aren’t the two time defending champions for nothing.”

All four teams in this weekend’s Canada West showdown have already earned berths to the CIS Nationals. TRU is the host team. But Hennelly would like to up his teams ranking in order to avoid a meeting with #1 Laval Rouge et Or in the first match of the event. A medal this weekend would go a long way to avoiding them off the bat.

“I think you don’t want to project things too much,’ he said. “If we have to play Laval, we have to play them. They are the number one team in the country but they are very similar to us. They have a new setter, a new middle and an experienced power hitter. They were second in the country last year and we had a good match up with them. I think we’d do well against them. They have two dominant outside hitters but so do we (3rd year Gord Perrin of Creston, BC and 1st year Kevin Tillie of Cagnes Sur Mer, France along with the re emergence of Robin Schoebel: 4th year of Monaco). They are number one now but I think at Nationals there will be at least six other teams with a legitimate shot of knocking them off.”

Hennelly says his team holds its fate in its hands. And a victory this Saturday (Mar 6) against Alberta would be a step in the right direction.



SIDE OUTS: Hennelly says the play of Tillie, Schoebel and first year setter Colin Carson (Prince George, BC) have improved dramatically since the Christmas break. They could be a factor this weekend. “Gord was good then and he is good now,” says Hennelly of Perrin. “Colin wasn’t good when we played them at the start of the year. He is pretty good now. Anytime you have young players in starting roles, they are going to get a lot better. I think Colin Carson is 50 per cent better than the start of the year.”

Alberta finished the regular season with 14 wins and 4 losses. TRU was 10 and 8. The Golden Bears Simon Lidster (4th year middle, Calgary, Alta) had the most blocks in the Canada West averaging 1.51 per set (39 sets, four solo blocks, 55 block assists). Carson led the Canada West in Assists with 722 in 67 sets for an average of 10.78. Tillie was tops in service aces: 30 in 67 sets with an average of 0.45 per set.

The WolfPack will tangle with Alberta Saturday at 2 pm (MDT) with Calgary playing Trinity Western in their semi final at Noon (MDT). The Bronze medal match on Sunday, March 7 th will be at noon (MDT) with the gold medal going at 2 pm (MDT)

Larry Read
Sports Information Officer
Thompson Rivers University
900 McGill Road, P.O. Box 3010
Kamloops, BC, Canada V2C 5N3
(250) 377-6117 (office)
(250) 371-5672 (fax)
lread@tru.ca
(250) 819-5255 (blackberry)