Kings and Broncos battle in a playoff-like match, RDP comes out on top in five
Red Deer, October 13, 2023 - After winning the first set, the Red Deer Polytechnic Kings would drop the next two but managed to win the fourth and final set to take the match against the Olds College Broncos.
After a strong ACAC Championship last season, outside-hitter Noah Carlson (Open Studies) would open the Kings season and the match with his first kill of the year out of the back row. Outside-hitter Colby Nemeth (Bachelor of Commerce) on his first serve of the season would put the ball to the floor to give himself his first ace of the season. Nemeth led the ACAC in aces last season. The Kings would jump out to an early 7-2 lead which caused Broncos Head Coach Ryan Marsden to use one of his two timeouts of the set. Following the short break, the Kings would just give up the one point as they went on a seven-point run to jump out to a massive 14-3 lead to force Olds College to use up their final timeout of the set. Outside-hitter Carter Hills (Bachelor of Kinesiology) would pick up an ace of set point to help his Kings run away with a 25-10 victory in the first game of the match.
But the Broncos would quickly put that first set behind them and come out to fight in the second set as it was a back-and-forth battle to start the second. After shaking off the rust, Olds College managed to force Kings Head Coach Aaron Schulha to call a timeout after the Broncos leaped to a three-point lead late in the second set. But the Polytechnic battled back and managed to take a one-point lead into an Olds timeout. The Broncos would end up fighting their way back and taking the second set 26-24 after a Kings attacking error.
At the end of two sets, Broncos outside-hitter Matheus Franca led his team with eight kills and Carlson from the Kings had seven.
The Polytechnic would shake off this close set defeat and jump out to an early lead thanks to some great serving from the home team. Once again, the Broncos would continue to fight despite being down in the set and found themselves down by one before the Kings called a timeout. This was thanks to some incredible offence that worked their way around a Kings net presence that is quite athletic and tall. After a huge block on the left side, the Broncos found themselves up 23-19 as they went into the Kings final timeout of the set and picked up two kills to end the set 25-20. One of those kills came from Franca, who was the match leader in kills after the third set with 15.
The Broncos would continue their momentum into the fourth set and were playing solid volleyball. They were really digging deep on defence and were swinging away on offence. But after some key substitutions from the Kings, they managed to crawl back into the set and found themselves down by just one. Middle-blocker Ben Atwood (Bachelor of Applied Science in Agribusiness) would spark his team with three straight serves to regain their four-point lead. However, the Kings were not going without a fight and would go on a run that put them up 23-21 and ultimately, would take the fourth 25-22 to force a fifth and final set.
The Kings would explode to a 6-1 lead after Hill's 10th kill of the match that was given to him off a Broncos passing error. Ultimately, the Polytechnic would not look back and ran away with the fifth set as they defeated Olds 15-10.
The players of the game were awarded to Broncos Mattheus Franca with 18 kills on the night and Kings Noah Carlson who finished his night with 14.
These two teams will be off tomorrow but will be back in action next weekend. The Broncos will welcome the Briercrest College Clippers to town with the Kings heading to Calgary to take on the SAIT Trojans.