Royals Tame Dragons and Advance

CMU Blazers vs. Douglas Royals – Thursday March 6, 4:00pm PST | SEMI FINAL

The PACWEST champion Royals advanced to the men’s semi-final after a four-set victory on Wednesday over the ACAA champion Dragons de Sainte-Anne.

The Royals set the tone early and pounded the Dragons in the first set 25-15, before they battled back.  The Dragons evened the quarterfinal match at 1-1 sneaking a 25-23 victory.  That didn’t seem the phase the Royals as they came out flying in the third and won 25-20 before completely shutting down their opponents 25-12 in the fourth set to take the match.

Offensively the Royals mashed the ball with 41 recorded kills led by Marvin Tumusiime and his 15. Setter Elijah Kim was named Player of the Match as he ran a balanced offense with Luke Hans collecting eight kills, Nathan Howden-Duke with six and Lucas Sansone chipped in with five.  Kim finished with an impressive 32 assists.

They will advance to face the wildcard seed from Manitoba, the CMU Blazers who took down the RESQ champion Griffons de l’Outaouais in four sets in their quarterfinal.  The Royals will need to slow down the dynamic duo of Duncan Petrie and Levi Johnson who combined for 27 kills in the win.  No other player on their roster had more than seven.

In the regular season they finished 12-9 and earned a berth in this championship despite losing their Conference title match to the Providence Pilots, who are the hosts of the CCAA nationals, giving the Manitoba Conference two seeds.

The winner will advance to the CCAA gold medal match on Saturday, the loser moves to the bronze medal side of the bracket.