Live Webcast

The University of Regina's women's volleyball team, winners of four straight matches and nine of its last 10, will travel to Langley, B.C. this weekend for a best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal series at Trinity Western.

Match 1 and Match 2 will be played on Thursday and Friday night with 8:00 (PST) starts, while a third and deciding match – if it's necessary – will start at 7:00 p.m. (PST) on Saturday.

The two teams have a long playoff history with each other; in fact, Manitoba is the only school that the Cougars have played in the postseason more often than Trinity Western in the U of R's 39 seasons as an intervarsity program. The quarterfinal series will mark the fifth time in the last nine years that Regina and TWU have clashed at some point in the postseason.

The Cougars closed out the conference schedule last weekend with a pair of road wins over then-No. 6 UBC Okanagan, winning in four sets on Friday before pulling out a five-set victory on Saturday to finish with a 12-10 Canada West record and in sixth place in the conference standings. Desiree Ates, who was named the Canada West Second Star of the Week on Tuesday after collecting 47 kills and 32 digs in the two wins, was one of two Cougars to finish the season with major conference records. Ates' 347 kills and rookie setter Leah Shevkenek's 860 assists were both the highest single-season totals in Canada West history.

And the Cougars had a third leader in a major offensive category, as fourth-year middle Michelle Sweeting led all Canada West players with a .333 hitting percentage. Ates, Shevkenek, Sweeting, Molly Wade-Cummings, Tori Glynn, and Chelsea Ziolkowski will almost certainly form the U of R's starting six with Megan Semeniuk at libero and Lindsay Braul coming in to serve as a defensive specialist late in sets.

Trinity Western has been ranked in every poll this season, coming in as high as No. 2 and as low as No. 5 over the course of the year. The No. 3-ranked Spartans finished in third place in the Canada West standings with a 17-5 record, with their only losses coming against Alberta, Brandon, Regina, and twice to UBC.

Second-year outside hitter Sophie Carpenter led TWU with 294 kills during the conference season, with Royal Richardson and Alicia Perrin as solid secondary options to Carpenter on the offensive side of the ball. The Spartans have seen some movement at the critical setter position as both Lauren Moncks and rookie Vanessa Cornwall have controlled the team's offence for significant portions of the season, though Cornwall got the start each of the Trinity Western's final five matches of the conference schedule.

Trinity Western is also on a tear with wins in 12 of its last 13 – a streak that started with a four-set win over the Cougars back on Nov. 23 at the Langley Events Centre. That win avenged a 25-16, 25-20, 25-22 loss to Regina the previous night. Besides splitting the Canada West series, the teams also met once in non-conference action with Trinity Western winning in four sets over the Cougars in early October in Langley.

Though the 26 conference games played between the two teams have been an even 13-13 split, Trinity Western holds a 6-2 advantage in the postseason. Seven of those eight playoff matches have been in the Canada West quarterfinals, while the other was a five-set win for the Cougars over Trinity Western in the third-place match at the 2010 Canada West Final Four – a win which gave the U of R a berth to the CIS Championship.

Live webcast for all three matches will be available at www.canadawest.tv.