Michelle Sweeting had a career-high 22 kills and became the University of Regina's all-time leader in both career kills and career blocks on Friday night, but her Cougars suffered a four-set loss to MacEwan in a Canada West women's volleyball match at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
MacEwan (10-11) came out of the gates with 25-19 and 25-23 wins in the first two sets before the Cougars pulled out a 25-23 win in a third set which they trailed by as many as seven points after the technical timeout. The Griffins clinched the match with a 25-22 victory in the fourth, and are now just one win back of Manitoba and UBC who are both tied for the final two Canada West postseason berths with 11-10 records.
But for Sweeting, it was a career night. Besides her 22 kills which eclipsed her previous high of 21 set earlier this season, she also jumped to the top of the school's career lists in both all-time kills and blocks – passing former Cougar middle Beth Clark in both categories. With three matches to go, Sweeting now has 965 career kills and 345 career blocks.
MacEwan's balanced attack saw four players with at least nine kills, including Madison Porisky (13), Dakota Wilson (12), Cassidy Kinsella (11), and Christina Campbell (9). Kinsella had 14 digs and Porisky added 13 digs, while Wilson was brilliant at the net with a match-high 11 blocks as all three players registered double-doubles for the Griffins. Libero Karly Edgar had a team-high 16 digs, while setter Rebecca Martin finished with 41 assists.
Tori Glynn led all players with 18 digs for the Cougars (6-15) while chipping in with eight kills, while Sweeting,
Leah Shevkenek, and
Molly Wade-Cummings each had a solo block and three block assists. Shevkenek had 45 assists and three aces, while libero
Lindsay Braul had 15 digs for the U of R.
MacEwan came out strong with an 11-4 lead in the first set with extended serving stints by both Jacey Hook and Rebecca Martin, though the Cougars would make things interesting with an 8-3 run following the technical timeout that cut MacEwan's lead to just 19-17. But the Griffins put together a 6-2 run of their own, capped by a Porisky kill that gave MacEwan a 25-19 win. It was Regina's turn to lead most of the way in the second set, but MacEwan turned the tides after the Cougars went up 21-18 and scored seven of the set's final nine points for a 25-23 win that gave the visitors a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
It looked as though MacEwan would cruise to a three-set win after going up 18-11 in the third, but Cougar head coach
Melanie Sanford called a timeout and the home side turned it on from there. A huge 14-5 run gave the Cougars a 25-23 win to force a fourth, but the Cougars weren't able to push it to a fifth and deciding set. They took a 16-13 lead into the technical timeout, but MacEwan scored six consecutive points with Kinsella serving to go up three. Regina scored four straight of its own to briefly take the lead back, but MacEwan collected six of the final eight points to claim the match with a 25-22 win.
The two teams will meet again on Saturday night (5:00, canadawest.tv).
NOTES: Wade-Cummings broke Sweeting's school single-season blocks record on Friday, passing the mark of 86 set by Sweeting last year ... Wade-Cummings now has 90 on the season, but Sweeting is just behind her with 86.
