The Camosun Chargers volleyball teams swept their October 16-17 season openers with an action-packed home and away weekend against Island rivals, the VIU Mariners.
On Friday night in Victoria, the Chargers welcomed a full house of spectators to the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence to kick off the season and celebrate the 2014-15 Men's Volleyball National Championship win with a banner raising ceremony which was held between matches (video). Camosun met up with the Mariners in Nanaimo the following evening to complete the weekend.
In men's action, Head Coach Charles Parkinson and his Camosun crew captured their first two victories of the year with a tough 3-1 battle on Friday (25-22, 30-28, 20-25, 25-22) followed by a straight set win on Saturday (25-20, 25-21, 25-23).
"Whenever you sweep another team in PACWEST play it is a good weekend, and we were pleased with the 3-1 and 3-0 outcomes against a tough opponent in VIU," stated Coach Parkinson. "While the Chargers played well overall, we haven't done any team play yet in practice and the inconsistency showed at times. As we get deeper into the season we should be able to smooth out our fluctuations and produce a performance curve that trends steadily upwards. VIU was suffering from a few injury problems and I expect that they will get much better as well as the season unfolds. For now, though, we'll celebrate a strong start to the season."
Fifth-year setter and Co-Captain of the Chargers, Vitor Macedo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was instrumental in engineering Camosun's two wins and earned PACWEST Men's Volleyballl Athlete of the Week for his outstanding performance. Through his clever distribution of the ball, Vitor helped five of players reach double figures in scoring while contributing a two-day total of 15 digs, 3 kills, 3 blocks and an ace.
Bonita Joe, Camosun Athletics Marketing Officer