Royals Down Chargers in Four

The Douglas Royals played host to the visiting Camosun Chargers Friday night in New Westminster, BC.  Coming off a split with the COTR Avs the week before, the Royals were sitting tied for 4th place in the Conference with the UFV Cascades and had two valuable matches in hand.  The Chargers entered the evening sitting in 2nd place and coming off a sweep of the CBC Bearcats also from the week before.

The Royals and Chargers played a tight match all night long. The first set went to the home team 25-22.  The Chargers came back in the second 25-23 to tie the match.  Set three was another close one, this time going back to the Royals 25-21.  The fourth and final set also went to the Royals giving the host team a 3-1 win.

"Friday night was a good night for us, we executed the game plan and played as a team and everyone gave a strong performance." commented Douglas head coach Kyra Ianonne.

The Royals were lead by Juliana Penner (13 kills, 1 ace, 6 digs), Autumn Davidosn (10 kills, 2 blocks, 1 ace), Darby Dunn (11 kills, 1 acem 6 digs) and Jessica Funk (1 kill, 1 block, 10 aces, 6 digs).

"Douglas played a great match. The best we've experienced in my 6 years in the league. They've only improved under Kyra's guidance and I like a lot of what they do on the court." commented head coach Chris Dahl. "It might sound odd, but I feel the turning point in the night happened late in the first set. We had built a reasonable lead and were well set up to trade sideouts and cruise to a first set win, but Jessica Funk put forth a great run from the service line. From that point on, even though we rebounded to win the second, I felt like we were playing catch-up for the rest of the night."

Contintued Dahl, "this was the first weekend of a new lineup for us and although the result wasn't what we'd hope for...it's a great lineup with a lot of promise. We were prepared for a tough Douglas team, but I will admit that our preparation focused on our half of the ball. We felt this was necessary considering recent roster adjustments."

The Chargers were led by Michelle Zygmunt (11 kills, 3 aces, 8 digs) and Katie Fetting (10 kills, 9 digs).

Both teams are back in acrion tomorrow at 1 pm.