A look at this week’s upcoming games
By Davie Wong, Sports Reporter
The month of February continues to fly by at an extraordinary pace. Teams are gearing up for that final push into playoff weekend and this week that will be especially evident. Here’s a look at this week’s games.
Women’s Volleyball:
This week’s Royals matchup of the week features the most heated competition in the women’s volleyball PACWEST conference. The ladies are coming home to end their regular season, and who better to end their season against than the Capilano Blues.
The matchup will determine who has control of third place. This position is so important going into playoffs as the third seeded team will play the sixth seeded team, while the fourth seed plays the fifth. The Royals will need to sweep the weekend 2-0 if they hope to clinch that third seed.
The last time these teams met was during the season opener, and the results could not have been tighter. The two split games on Capilano’s court going 5 sets in both games. But that was a long time ago, and since then, both teams have seen dramatic improvement
Look for momentum to be the decider this weekend. The story of the season for the Royals has been their inability to shift momentum. When the team drops two sets, they have had a history of being unable to contest the deciding set. However, things look to be much better in that department lately, as the team showed signs of brilliance last week, coming back from being down 0-2 to UFV.
This week’s games will be played on Thursday at 6 p.m, and Friday at 6 p.m at the New Westminster campus.
Men’s Volleyball:
It’s been nothing but playoff prep for these men as they have sweeping the bottom of the conference for the past couple of weeks. They find themselves in a similar position this week as they come home to end their regular season against the sixth place Capilano Blues.
It is likely that coach Brad Hudson will play his entire rotation but put much of the emphasis on resting his veterans for the coming weekend. The last time the two teams played, it was not at all in favour of the Blues, as the Royals dismantled them. Nothing should change this time around as the Royals have done nothing but improve this year.
Women’s Basketball:
Last week was a hard week for this Royals team. They split it 1-1, but came out looking shaky. Specifically, their defence was much worse than it has been all season. This week, they have matches against the Langara Falcons and the Quest Kermodes, on their respective home courts.
It should be a time of readjustment for the Royals as they look to toughen up on the back end. While the matchups this week are exciting, the Royals have shown that they can be more than dominant against any team in the league.
Men’s Basketball:
The men have tough matchups as they face two of the league’s better teams. Coming off of a devastating loss to the VIU Mariners, the men are faced with adversity as they seek to prove themselves. They have more than shown their ability to beat bad teams, but their ability to win against good teams will be on display now.
Facing off against the Langara Falcons and the Quest Kermodes, two teams that have previously beat them, the Royals will need to be on-point. Their rebounding, which was a huge factor in their loss against VIU, will need to be the best it’s been all season
