Lions Defeat Broncos In Four Hard Fought Sets

Both teams played tenacious defense, but in the end the difference was error management and attacking on the Lions side that brought them to victory. The Lions Player of the Game  was Harry Rosewarn, with 15 digs, 2 aces, and 12 kills.

Olds came out strong and won the first set, going on long serving runs and picking up digs that frustrated the Ambrose offense. The Lions struggled with serving and hitting errors, while the Broncos played safe and trusted their offense to get the job done. Olds POG, rightside Tyson Deschene, proved to be very difficult to stop out of the front and back row, leading his team to the first set victory at 25-22.

Ambrose found their composure from that point on, building up leads and winning  the next two sets in convincing fashion, 25-17 and 25-20. Jacob Reid and Adam Morris, each with 3 stuff blocks, did their part to shut down the Olds outside hitters while the Lions controlled their errors and made the safe plays. First year Lions setter Ryan Andres, coming in as a serving sub, unleashed his deadly float serve on the Broncos and racked up four aces without missing a single serve.

The final set saw Ambrose once again take a comfortable lead, up 20-15 before Olds mounted a furious comeback led by the attacking and blocking of Tyson Deschene. Tied up at 22-22, the teams went back and forth to force the score into the high 20s. Harry Rosewarn came up big in crunch time, scoring almost all of the Lions kills late in this game. Leading 29-28, the final kill came from first year leftside Jonny Gerber, swinging off of the Olds block and sending the ball out of bounds for his team's first win of the year.

The Lions will hope to end the semester on a weekend sweep tonight in Olds, while the Broncos will no doubt remain hungry for a win of their own. The men's teams will play at 8:00 pm, following the women's game. The stream will be at acactv.ca, catch all the action live there in this final game of the calendar year.

- Brent Ingram