Photo and Story Credit: Cranbrook Townsman
The College of the Rockies men's volleyball team got their first win of the year against the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).
On Friday, in front of a full home crowd, the Avalanche won 3-2.
"It was a battle, UFV won the serve-pass game for most of the night so we had to be better at it later in the game. It was a battle the whole way through and I'm really proud of the guys," said head coach Cisco Farrero.
"We had to earn it, that's the thing about the PACWEST you are never going to get it for free, and UFV is a good team and good program," he said.
With their next match less than 24 hours away, Farrero said to keep the momentum the team had to let the win go.
"Just like we have to let go of a loss, we have to let go of a win. We can do a whole bunch of things better, but I really loved the fight of this team and the group of guys," he said.
On Saturday the team was able to carry their momentum in and get their second win of the season, winning 3-2 in what was another battle against UFV.
"It was hard, we really had to earn it. UFV was good, their star Ben Friesen was tremendous today. It was really hard for us, we couldn't really stop him all night. They blocked better than we did and better than last night, so for us to be resilient is really important, said Farrero.
Resiliency was a major factor for the win.
"We blew a couple leads, and we had a couple of moments where we lost confidence in ourselves, but we found it and stuck together, that was totally huge for us," said Farrero.
Outside hitter Caleb Peters said the weekend went well and it was nice to come away with the wins.
"We fought really hard as a team. We made mistakes, but we definitely fought it out and kept it together, and was always up making sure everybody was O.K. and playing hard," he said.
For Peters, he said the mental game this weekend really helped the team get those wins.
"We weren't quite as emotional, and we stayed up, didn't get down on another and we kept fighting for it no matter what was going on with the score," he said.
Getting the two wins was huge for setter Mark Armstrong.
"I'm glad we got it done at home," he said. "Everybody got rolling, everybody played really well."
The Avalanche will be back in action on Oct. 26 against Victoria Island University at 8 p.m., and again on Oct 27 at 1 p.m. at COTR.
"There's a lot of things we have to work on, we are playing VIU, they were the best team in our conference last year. We definitely need to play a lot better, a lot cleaner – especially in our block defence- We can enjoy this one, Monday we will be back to work," said Farrero.