Saturday night, SFU volleyball played host to the Seattle Pacific Falcons. A game late in the season between the third- and eighth-ranked teams in the conference in most instances does not matter a whole lot. However, the Clan needs to win every game to increase the chances of being selected to postseason play. They did their part, beating Seattle Pacific 3–1.
“I thought aside from the little stretch in the second where we played a fairly focused game and did a good job of executing what we wanted to do offensively and defensively,” said head coach Gina Schmidt afterwards. “I was pleased with that. We did have a little bit of a let-down in the second set, but came back well for sets three and four.”
The stretch that she referred to was when Seattle came back from a 20–12 deficit to eventually win the set 25–23. From there however, the Clan turned it around, winning the next two sets in convincing fashion.
“I just pointed out that we had 13 hitting errors in the second set, and probably in the second half of that second set,” Schmidt said, on what she told the team after the second set. “You can’t win games when you score half the points for the other team. I just told them if we can eliminate those [mistakes], then we’re in good shape.”
The game marked a sort of revenge game for SFU, as they were swept by the Falcons in the game in Seattle back on October 13.
“When we were in Seattle [. . .] we gave up a lot of points on our side. Our offence did not execute on their side. That’s what we [talked] about, we wanted to make sure we were taking care of our side tonight and that will help take care of the result. It was much better execution start to finish than compared to our game down there.”
If this was a big game for SFU, then the next match is massive. They’ll travel to Western Washington to play the Vikings; in the match here in the West Gym on September 14, they beat them in a five-set thriller. A win will move them within one game of them, but also assure them of third place in the conference.
“They’re a good team, and when we were here, it went five. I expect another hard-fought game down there on their court,” said Schmidt on what to expect. “They don’t make a lot of mistakes, so essentially it will be making sure that we make them earn their points and take care of the ball on our side. Again, [we have to] execute our game plan.”
