Ruilin FuThough the Pandas volleyball team hasn’t returned to conference play for the second half of the season, they still stayed active over the break, hosting the New Years classic tournament this past weekend.
The tournament featured the University of Calgary Dinos, Saskatchewan Huskies, Montreal Carabins, Regina Cougars, and NIFS Kanoya, a university team from Japan.
Though they were dominant in straight-sets victories over the Dinos and Carabins, the Pandas were in tough against a disciplined Kanoya team. Eventually, the U of A squad fell 3-1 to the Japanese squad.
Despite the loss, head coach Laurie Eisler said she was happy with the way her team showed consistent improvement throughout the tournament.
“We become completely dull over the break,” Eisler said. “But by the end of the weekend, we’re playing better than we did before the time off.”
According to Eisler, the exchange program with Japan has been in place for about 30 years, and feels very fortunate that her team has the opportunity to play with and learn from the Japanese team.
“You can’t help but get better every time you play against them (NIFS Kanoya), as long as you don’t quit,” Eisler said. “The level is so high, it exposes a lot of the weaknesses in our game, but you tend to learn a lot by osmosis.”
After a banner first half, the Panda are riding a wave of momentum into the back half of the season. With a 12-0 record in the first half of the season, the Pandas are ranked first overall in CIS and second in Canada West. With a 36-5 set record, they dominated the competition in the highly competitive Canada West division.
With a solid .233 team kill percentage, and a kills-per-set figure that’s second best in Canada West, the Pandas are a dangerous offensive team. This being said, there are no real holes in the game of Eisler’s squad. Strong on both the defensive side of the ball as well as on the block, the Pandas bring a well-rounded team to the floor every match.
Led by fourth-year outside Meg Casault and her 4.68 kills per set, the Pandas are rounded out with several other key position players. Fifth-year libero Jessie Niles recently took sole possession of the All-Time Pandas digs leader, and leads Canada West in digs per set. Third-year setter Mariah Walsh leads CIS with 10.76 assists per set, helping the Pandas distribute the ball effectively on offence.
With a tough schedule ahead of them, Eisler said she feels confident in where her team is coming out of the break. Despite this, she pointed out the importance of maintaining consistency in the rest of the regular season.
“We have to take the next matches one at a time,” Eisler said, “on paper, they’re no bigger than the matches we had in the fall.”
Next week’s matchup with the Trinity Western University Spartans is, for Eisler, not a rematch of last year’s CIS and Canada West finals.
“The teams look very different than they did last year,” Eisler said, “it’s important to keep all that in perspective. We have to have the long term vision of the playoffs in mind.”
