Reds move into first place

The women’s volleyball team may not have been slated as the top team in the conference going into the season, but they proved this is a team that cannot be taken lightly.

Going into the weekend the Varsity Reds had two of their toughest AUS opponents standing in the way of wins, not to mention they were on the road.

Friday night UNB took on the Dalhousie Tigers with UNB opening up with a first set loss, 25-22.

From there the Varsity Reds brought back their offensive power winning the second set 25-21 to tie the match 1-1.

They followed up with a tight 25-23 third set win and a fourth set 25-17 win to drop the Tigers at home.

Head coach John Richard was pleased with his team’s effort aside from the early stages of the match.

“I thought with the exception of the first 10 minutes or so on Friday night we put together a really good effort,” he said. “Our blocking wasn’t very strong, however our serving was ... which compensated somewhat. I thought Emma Hunt was a real spark for our team and scored some big points at critical times.”

After winning the opening match of the weekend, the V-Reds took on Saint Mary’s on Saturday.

Struggling early on they lost the first two sets 25-21 and getting slammed 25-13 in the second set to trail the Huskies 2-0.

“We got thumped pretty good in that second set,” said Richard. “It’s funny actually we changed our uniforms after the second set. Jill Blanchard had some blood on her uniform because she was cut. We went out in the third set with new uniforms and were a different team. Erica and Jill weren’t at their best in the first couple sets and they’re so important to us. They got better as the match went on as did everyone else around them.”

“We didn’t make any adjustments, we used the exactly the same lineup. The only change was the uniform tops.”

The Reds bounced back winning the third set 25-23, followed by another tight set winning the fourth set 25-23 to take the match to the fifth and final set.

They were able to defeat SMU taking the fifth set 15-12 to improve their record to 5-1 and first place in the conference.

“On Saturday I didn’t think we played as well but did just enough to steal it,” said Richard. “We got more diverse and started playing some defence as the match progressed. Obviously I’m really happy with these two road wins and real proud of our group.” Next weekend the team will travel to Quebec for the Interlock tournament.