Trojans Strike Against Lightning

The Second Match of the Conference Championships saw the SAIT Trojans home to the Concordia Thunder. Concordia and SAIT fans Travelled down to Medicine Hat to support their squad. Both fan bases were extremely vocal early on, getting loud for their respective teams. The Trojans jumped out to an early lead, pulling ahead 5-1. Good Serving and strong offensive play forced the Thunder to take an early timeout. The Trojan Passing game was exceptional early with their setter barely having to move to make plays. With this passing accuracy the Trojans were firing offensively with the setter moving the ball around making smart sets. The Thunder refused to quit, even down by 6 the thunder did not roll over, instead, they started making plays slowly chipping away at the SAIT lead. Unforced errors started to kill Concordia who would record an error when momentum was finally swinging their way. The Trojan lead was narrowed to 2 as the Thunder started clicking offensively and hitting around blocks rather than through them. This small lead was short lived as the Trojans once again started to take over stretching the lead to 5. The teams traded service as the score crept closer and closer to a SAIT win. The early Trojan lead was too difficult to recover from for the Thunder. SAIT took the first 25-20. 

The second set Had a better start for the Lightning than the first. Concordia kept the game close early, not falling behind until unforced errors cost the Thunder 3 straight putting them down 6-2. This forced Concordia to take another early timeout in the set. SAIT appeared to be the stronger team in all ways especially on offence, converting on a way higher percentage of attacks. 2 more serves from Trojan Trent Mounter, saw the gap increase even more when a block gave SAIT an 8 point lead. This forced a frustrated Lucas Jacobson to call his second timeout of the set with only 3 points on the board. The agitated Lightning Coach did not even enter the team huddle in timeout, instead taking down notes. The SAIT serving was handcuffing the Lightning Passing and allowing the Trojans to expand their lead on the serve. This along with a multi-pronged Trojan attack, Concordia was left to guess where the Trojans offence was going to flow through. This Domination continued throughout the second set with the trojans up 11, 18-7. This trend continued through the end of set with the Trojans coming out on top, 25-8.

SAIT hoped to close out a quick 3 set victory and conserve some energy for the rest of the weekend. The Clippers had other plans they opened the set with a quick kill. The Trojans answered right back on the next play evening the game at 1. The Trojans from here took the lead again using their high-powered offence to swing momentum in their favor. Concordia again used an early timeout, this time it had more efficacy than the first two sets, with the thunder crawling back in to the set. They completed this by matching the Trojans at 8 and even taking the lead for the first time in the match. This lead was short lived being immediately matched by the Trojans. The Thunder's "never say die" attitude served them well in this match against a bigger more skilled team. Despite this, the Thunder continued to hang around proving to be more trouble to put away in the third set. The score knotted at 15, both teams struggled to pull away at all in the set. 2 unforced errors by Concordia saw the Trojans take a 19-16 lead late. The Lightning called a timeout and came out of the break firing. Teams traded serves until the end where the Trojans squeaked out a close win 25-22 taking the match 3 sets to 0.