Thompson Rivers University will start the 2015-2016 volleyball season against the Canada West’s best.
The Canada West Universities Athletic Association released its volleyball schedules for the upcoming season on Monday. The WolfPack’s men’s and women’s teams will both start the regular season against the University of Alberta, last year’s regular season champions in both men’s and women’s volleyball.
The Golden Bears went on to capture the Canada West and CIS men’s national titles, while the Pandas fell to the Trinity Western Spartans in both women’s championship matches.
On the men’s side, TRU will be looking to rebound after a slow start to 2014 derailed a promising campaign. The WolfPack won their last eight games to sneak into the post-season with a 13-11 record last season, but were eliminated from contention by the Spartans in back-to-back matches in a Canada West quarterfinal.
The WolfPack women, on the other hand, will be looking to build on the significant improvement they showed in 2014-2015. TRU assembled a 10-14 record in head coach Chad Grimm’s rookie season, after losing 22 straight matches the previous campaign. The club finished two spots back of the playoffs.
Both of TRU’s clubs will play identical regular-season slates. They will start the season on the road to face Alberta, before returning to Kamloops for their Oct. 23 home opener against the MacEwan Griffins.
The WolfPack’s longest homestand of the season will be four matches — facing the Calgary Dinos at the Tournament Capital Centre the weekend after opening against the Griffins — while they will never play more than two consecutive matches away from the Kamloops.
Also coming to town will be the Brandon Bobcats, the UBC-Okanagan Heat, the Saskatchewan Huskies, the Manitoba Bisons and the Spartans.
TRU will be on the road to face Alberta, the Winnipeg Wesmen, the Heat, the Mount Royal Cougars, the Regina Cougars and the UBC Thunderbirds.
The regular season will wrap up for both clubs at home, against the Spartans, on Feb. 13. The first-round of the Canada West playoffs will begin on Feb. 26, with the conference’s top seven teams qualifying for the post-season.
This year’s CIS men’s national championship will be played in Hamilton, Ont., at McMaster University, while the women will travel to Brandon for nationals, hosted by the Bobcats. Both tournaments begin on March 11.
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