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Rustlers Sink the Vikings

A matchup with the Augustana Vikings seemed to be just what the Lakeland Rustlers women's volleyball team needed to get back on track. The Rustlers dominated the weekend series, winning 3-0 both nights thanks to a balanced attack and some determined play.  The wins ended the Rustlers three match losing streak and evened their record to 3-3 in 2012. It also puts them in a favourable spot to advance to a qualification weekend.  Rustlers head coach Austin Dyer said his team still has room for improvement, but picking up wins at this time of the year is key.

“It was good. We're still making a number of unforced errors which we definitely have to eliminate, but to come out with wins we can't complain about that. We needed both these matches,” Dyer said. “They went on a couple of runs against us. If we eliminate those, it's going to help us improve.”

The Rustlers wasted little time earning their fifth and sixth wins of the season.  Dyer said against the Vikings, the Rustlers had a plan in mind to utilize the full court and stretch out the Vikings defence and that's exactly what they were able to do.

“We really wanted to set the ball to the pins, every time we got the ball out to the antennas basically there was a lot of room to swing – a moving block or no block,” Dyer explained of his team's game plan on offence. “That was the big thing for us. It was definitely working. On that front, we definitely did well. And our serving was pretty good. Those two things combined definitely gave us the wins.”

 After dropping two matches in Grande Prairie, Dyer admitted his team was disappointed, so for them to rebound like they did and come away with two big wins, is huge heading into the final matches of the season.

“After last weekend we were a little bit down in the dumps. As a team we felt we were better than them and we just didn't play. We weren't playing up to the level we needed to play, so coming in, beating a team and beating them handily, definitely boosts the confidence for them” Dyer said. “Hopefully this will lead us into our next opponent.”

Rustlers left side Natasha Fowler said her team isn't looking at wins and losses, they're just focussed on playing well and hopefully being successful in the last few weekends and wherever they end up, they'll go from there.

“It's great to have another win under our belt. It doesn't matter what team we're playing, we want to win. Now that we got these wins, we just want to keep the ball rolling,” she said. “It doesn't matter what the standings are, we just want to go as hard as we can.”

Fowler said the weekend was big for a few reasons, but the biggest mistake the Rustlers can make is if they become complacent after this sweep.  The team still has to work hard and continue to improve.

“We'll enjoy the feeling, but it's a fresh day, we'll let this go and focus on the next game,” she said. “We can't get too wrapped up in wins. We have to worry about our side and what we can do and play our best game possible for every game to come.”

The Rustlers are now off until Feb. 3 and 4 when they battle the King's Eagles. Dyer knows the season isn't over yet and they have big matches coming up.

“This is going to get us out of the bottom right now. It's going to set us up to get into a qualification weekend. We still have to win one or two more out of our remaining four matches,” he said. “If we can sweep the rest, we could be hosting a qualification round.”

Courtesy: Robb Fenton
Lloydminster Source