The Queens win in five sets against the Rattlers

Medicine Hat, October 28 - After coming off a bye week, the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens came away with a five-set victory over the Medicine Hat Rattlers.

To start the first set, it was quite obvious the Queens were coming off a bye week and were very rusty as they could not seem to make their set plays work and were not ready for the Rattlers. But that did not stop the Queens from battling back to stay in the game. The Rattlers would take the first set 25-20. This would be the fourth straight set lost going back to their opening weekend against the Briercrest Clippers.

The Queens looked a lot better in the second set. They were battling well against the Rattlers making it a back-and-forth match before taking a four-point lead going into the Rattlers timeout. This would be enough to take the second set 25-21. Veteran Jaiden Ferguson was given the chance to kill for the win and was able to put one past the Rattlers wall to take the second set.

The Red Deer women's squad would take this set winning momentum into the third set and take an early 11-6 lead and would not look back. The Rattlers stayed within a few points but could not come even with the Queens who would take the lead in the match with a 25-17 third set win. A nice dig by Ferguson kept the Queens in the rally where outside-hitter Lauren Junck would take the winning point with a kill.

The Rattlers would not go down with out a fight though as they were fighting to stay in it at the beginning of their do-or-die set taking an early 14-10 lead into the Queens timeout. Medicine Hat came out of the timeout still strong swinging for five points to the Queens one, forcing Head Coach Talbot Walton to call his second and last timeout of the set. But Red Deer fought back with five straight points out of their own to get within three points of the Rattlers. This was not enough for the Queens and the Rattlers would force a fifth and decisive set with a 25-17 win.

As expected, it was going to be a tight fifth set with the match on the line especially for the Queens as they do not want to drop consecutive matches. They were fighting hard and would take a 9-8 lead before the Rattlers called a timeout. After the timeout, Red Deer would go on a 6-1 run to take the first of two matches against the Rattlers this weekend.

Outside-hitter Jaiden Ferguson was named the Queens player of the game and the Rattlers libero Hailey Adams was awarded this honour.

The Queens will battle it out yet again in Medicine Hat at 1 pm tomorrow afternoon.