The Queens end their regular season on a high note, sweep the Wolves in three straight
Red Deer, February 11, 2023 – On graduation day for the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens and in their final regular season match they battled with the Northwestern Polytechnic Wolves on Saturday afternoon. The Queens will enter championships on a five-match winning streak as they would defeat the Wolves in three straight sets.
The Queens came out of the gate very fast as they took a 9-3 lead into a timeout called by the visitors. They had everything working early on in the set. One of the graduating players from RDP, Sydney Rix (Bachelor of Education) made a dying second return near the borders of the court and moments later would come up with a dig on a kill attempt by the Wolves in an enduring rally. After a big dig by libero Frankie Sandini (Justice Studies) that kept her team in the rally, setter Maria Brouwer (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) set up outside-hitter Lauren Junck (Bachelor of Arts in Psychology) for the kill and the set-clinching point to give the Queens a 25-15 first set victory.
The Queens jumped out to an early 8-3 lead over the Wolves but with some great defense, they crawled back into the set. At 10-7, a rally that last a few minutes was ended by a kill out of the middle by Wolves Lexis Ouellette (Open Studies) that made it through a double block. This started a comeback with Northwestern Polytechnic tying it up at 11. The Wolves would fight off three set points but could not stop middle-blocker Kira Weddell as she completed the second set with her fourth kill of the match to give her team a 25-21 set victory.
It was a slower start for the Queens with the Wolves putting up a fight to stretch out their season to at least one more set as they will miss the playoffs this year. Rix would go on a serving run to extend her Queens lead to six points as they entered a timeout called by the Wolves. Outside-hitter Vanessa Loos (Bachelor of Arts in Psychology) would continue the Queens serving excellence with a couple of serves that slowed down the Wolves offense. An RDP double block on the Wolves kill attempt gave the Queens the match point and the Queens would defeat the Wolves 25-15 in the final set.
Queens Head Coach says it feels great going into the championships sitting nicely in second place and on a five-game winning streak.
"It is fantastic. If you look at the South Division as a whole, if we just played teams in the South, we could have finished first in the division. We used those tough losses early in the season as teachable moments and the girls learned from them. This weekend with back-to-back three straight set wins, we proved to everyone else in the conference that we can hang and finish which is what elite teams need to do."
The Wolves player of the game went to their setter Aidan Armitage (Bachelor of Education), who completed her season with an incredible game with 22 assists and nine digs. For the Queens, the player of the game went to both athletes who are graduating from the program, middle-blocker Kira Weddell and right-side Sydney Rix. In their final regular season match, Rix had 7 kills, four digs and one service ace. Weddell had five kills, two aces and two digs.
At the end of the match Queens libero Frankie Sandini was awarded the Jon Walsh Memorial Queens Volleyball Scholarship as she exemplified strong commitment, perseverance and love of the game during the 2022-2023 season.
The Queens will have next weekend off as they prepare to host the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Women's Volleyball Championship on February 23-25.
Lastly, with the Queens regular season now finished, Red Deer Polytechnic would like to thank its generous donors who have helped the Queens play to their full potential this season by supporting student-athlete scholarships.