By Jo Wynn
With only four games left in the regular season, the Dinos women’s volleyball team is streamlined for success. The Dinos are still undefeated this season after winning against the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Jan. 21-22.
Friday night the Dinos opened the weekend at home in the Jack Simpson Gymnasium by slaughtering the Huskies 25-14. The team kept it up in the second and showed Saskatoon why Calgary is the reigning national champ with a 25-19 win. The Huskies bit back in the third. After some intense rallying and some missed serves by the Dinos, the Huskies stayed in the game by winning 25-22.
The Dinos crushed the Huskies’ hopes of a fifth game by winning the fourth with a quick 25-15 spanking. Friday night was (as always) a success for Joanna Niemczewska who ended the evening with 11 kills and eight digs in total. Also showing up on the scoreboard for Calgary was Sarah “Pipes” Onofrychuk with eight kills and libero Neda Boroumand with 11 digs.
Saturday night Niemczewska and rookie Lauren Perry led the domination in the Jack, as the Dinos opened the game with a 25-17 win in the first set. The second set was taken by the Huskies, who began to look alive, but Niemczewska saw room for improvement for the Dinos.
“I think it was mostly errors on our side, they did play better in that set but it was a lot of unforced errors like missed serves on our part. I think we just relaxed too much.”
The Dinos returned to full form for the third however, regaining the lead by winning 25-17. The final set was annihilation by the Dinos, who with a great showing by players such as Perry as well as Boroumand, put the Huskies out with a 25-12 set to win the game 3-1. Perry continued her amazing first season by racking up 10 kills and 14 digs Saturday night, Niemczewska shone with 16 kills and five digs and Boroumand racked up 14 digs during the evening.
Next up for our fearless Dinos is the upcoming game against top rivals, the University of Alberta Pandas in Edmonton Jan. 28-29. The Pandas could be the only threat to the Dinos for the Canada West title and though nerves are always a bit tight on Panda game days, Niemczewska is still relaxed.
“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. It’s working for us.”
Obviously it is, with 16 wins this season and no losses, the team only has four more regular season games before the race for the national title in March begins.