The Kings come home with an impressive five-set victory over the Rattlers

Medicine Hat, October 29 - The Red Deer Polytechnic Kings were looking to come away with a sweep of the Medicine Hat College Rattlers this weekend in volleyball action. The Kings come into this match with a 2-1 record and the Rattlers only were victorious in one out of their five matches this season.

It was an intense first set of this match with both teams exchanging points meaning the game was kept very close. The Rattlers and Kings were also trading errors with one another whether it was on serves or unforced mistakes. After the visiting Kings took a three-point lead, the Rattlers would take a timeout to see if they can put a stop into the offence that was exploding for a lot of clean kills early on in this match. The polytechnic were able to make their offence work from the middle, left side and right side which means the Kings setter Maddux Greves (Business Administration General) was able to have all options on the table to run the offence. With the home team facing set point they called a time out to ice the Kings server. After the break, the Rattlers were able to crawl within two points of the Kings to force Head Coach Aaron Schulha to call a timeout for his team. In the end right-side Brett Lower (Bachelor of Science Nursing) was able to get the kill to take the first set 25-22.

The second set would be more back and forth action exchanging points with one another before the Kings jumped to a 13-9 lead. This forced the Rattlers coach to call a timeout and his team would grab the next three points coming out of the timeout before the Kings struck with a middle attack to make it 14-12. Left-side Colby Nemeth was given the chance to use his topspin serve to win the set. The Rattlers could not handle the serve and it would go over the net for outside-hitter Nicolas Possingham (Bachelor of Arts Psychology) to kill it for the second set 25-21 victory.

In this third and possible deciding set, the Rattlers had to fight. They were down for most of the match and before the first timeout, the Kings had a 16-12 lead. The Rattlers would slowly come back into this match and diminish the lead play-by-play. It all came down to the final few points when the team from Medicine Hat tied it up at 25. They would get a great block on Possingham to close out the set 27-25.

Down two sets to one, the Rattlers were in fight mode going into the fourth set and fighting is exactly what they did. They were able to make their offence work against a tall net presence of the Kings but the Rattlers were finding ways to stop Red Deer or dig up their kills to continue the rally. After Medicine Hat went up 21-18, Schulha of the Kings called his final timeout to get his men to push through to take the match in four sets. But that was not the case. On set point, the Kings on their kill attempt would send it long, giving the Rattlers a 25-23 set victory.

This match continued with another tight battle between the two south teams. The Rattlers were not ready to finish their weekend and the Kings were ready to go back to Red Deer with two victories under their belt. After a couple of set points, the Kings would finally put this five-set thriller away with a clean kill out of the middle from first-year middle Jax Wasylowich (Open Studies) to take the set 15-13.

The players of the game went to middle Evan Ockerman and Rattlers setter Swayer Krebs. The setter from Medicine Hat College completed his afternoon with 41 assists and seven digs. For the first-year middle, he finished off with three kills, three digs and two solo blocks.

The Kings will finally have the opportunity to play in front of their home crowd fans next weekend on Friday, November 4 when they take on the University of Alberta-Augustana Vikings at 8 pm.