Womenâ??s volleyball move into second place in the AUS

Although the women’s volleyball team struggled before the break and lost Monica Jones early in the second half of the season, they are showing no signs of letting up as they moved into second place with two wins over the weekend.

In their only two road games of the semester, the team travelled to Moncton and Wolfville to face a pair of the lower ranked teams in the conference.

On Saturday the Varsity Reds took on the Aigles Bleues in test that did not raise any major concerns for UNB as they took the match in three straight 26-24, 25-18, and 25-20.

Head coach John Richard felt his team played great against a team that always seems to cause UNB trouble.

“Against Moncton I thought our team had one of our top matches of the season thus far,” said Richard. “It is always tough playing Moncton, in Moncton and our team responded by digging a lot of good shots and our transition game was strong all afternoon.”

Kicking off the weekend on a winning note was good, but the weekend was not over as the Reds travelled to Acadia to take on the last place team in the AUS. The Axewomen had only one win going into the match, which would lead you to believe another three straight set win would be in order.

Acadia had other plans as they came out firing winning the first set 25-20, surprising the Varsity Reds squad.

UNB bounced back winning the next set 25-18.

The third set showed how tough this Acadia team can be to play against as they controlled the set getting out to a 21-14 lead. UNB bounced back with a 12-3 run to finish off the set to take it 26-24.

The Varsity Reds would finish off the match with a 25-14 win, to take the match 3-1.

Coach Richard believes his team was complacent in believing this match was an easy win.

“I thought at Acadia we ‘believed’ we could do it despite not executing really well at times,” said Richard. “Coming back to steal that third game was the turning point and any time you can go 2-0 on the road you need to take it and run, which we did.”

UNB currently have second place to themselves and with only three games left, all at home they will look to hold onto the first round playoff bye.

“The schedule is in our favour with all three at home, so that’s a good thing,” said Richard. “Like I told our girls in October, ‘if we can go .500 on the road we’d be in good shape’. That’s really positive and it’s set the table for us to take care of business here at home.”

“Two of the three wins will probably get us the bye; one of the three may get it, but we’re banking on winning at least two of the final three with the aspirations of winning all three.”

With three games left the team seems to have made the right adjustments without Jones in the lineup. Richard knows next weekend against StFX and CBU will be a tough test.

“We’re definitely a different team without her. We miss her skill set and talent, but it’s more the emotion and presence she brings as a co-captain,” said Richard. “Some girls have had to step in that leadership piece, which in the long run will be a positive for our team.”

“Cape Breton is a tough team, but we stole a five setter in their gym in the first half after going down 2-0, so I think both teams are different then where we were last semester, but I feel good about how we look. That was a long time ago and I like the way our team is right now.”

This weekend UNB only has one game, Friday night at home against UdeM, a 7:00 p.m. start.