NEWS RELEASES

Mariner Press Release

MEN'S VOLLEYBALL OPEN WITH WIN !!             

By Chris Densmore, head coach

With four returning players and six new faces, this year's version of the Mariners is truly a different squad.   The returning players bring leadership and experience to the team.   The 1 st year players also bring experience with most of them coming from winning high school and club programs.   But more importantly, the rookies bring determination and desire to the team.   With 10 solid players on the team, everyone knows that they have to fight for their starting position.   With such strong recruits, the returning players know that they too have to step up their game to earn those starting positions.   The coaching staff keeps very detailed statistics on both games and practices which are used when deciding who should be playing.   These stats are available for the athletes to look at every practice to see how they are doing.   You could say that the athletes are now more accountable for their play in practice which creates some friendly competition.   On top of that, the stats definitely will help teach the players more about the game.   Even though Volleyball has been around for over 100 years, the new rule changes in scoring back in 2001 are quite new which means that people are still trying to figure out what the best strategy is for the new rules.   Limiting your errors is definitely high on my priority list.   With every rally being a point, the fewer errors you make the better your chances are to earn a point.   This year's team has incredible ball control, tough serving and is already making a name for themselves with their exceptional passing.   These things are the most glorious aspects of the game, but they are the difference between winning and losing.   In addition to these things, the team has bought into playing within the systems that the coaching staff has provided for them.   The goal of these systems is to be selfless and play as a team.   This may sound a little cliché, but the teams that play together and look out for each other and do the little things, those are the teams that in the end will succeed.  

Wednesday night was the first match of the year for the 2004/05 Mariners Men's Volleyball team.   The Mariners were matched up against their long time rival, the Camosun Chargers.   The first game started rather slowly with both teams making some nervous first game errors.   The Mariners took charge of the game with some consist tough serving and some exceptional passing.   On top of this, after some unforced errors at the beginning, the team's offence ran smoothly with everyone making smart decisions.   Once the Mariners got to 20 points, which the team has traditionally called their Red Zone, they finished the game with confidence to a score of 25-19.   Game two saw more of the same type of play with the Mariners winning 25-22.   The third game didn't go as well for the Mariners.   They controlled the entire game and were up 21-14 when then seemed to lose focus and started making poor decisions.   The Chargers made it close, but after a timeout with the score 24-22, the Mariners finished the set.   Since this was exhibition, we decided to play one more match to get some extra playing time in for the athletes.   In the fourth set the Mariners seemed to regain their focus and intensity as they dominated the entire game from start to finish.   The score was 25-19, but the game was only close due to a number of missed serves from the Mariners.   To say the least, this was a great start for the 2004/05 Mariners.

Not only was our first match a great start to the season, it was a great start to a team effort philosophy.   With everyone getting pretty much equal playing time, I would like to point out our team stats since it was a team effort.   The team's kill efficiency was 0.400 which is quite good.   We had 41 kills and only 11 errors.   The team passed 2.106 on a 3-0 scale (the higher the number the better) which is decent for the start of the season.   Ideally this number should be closer to 2.300 or 2.400.   Another high point for the team was the 19 stuff blocks that we piled up while only making 3 errors.   The two areas on the stat sheet that needs some improvement is our defense and team serving.   We had 25 digs for the match, but also had 13 missed digs (balls that were attacked and in the coach's mind should have been dug up).   Our team serving needs much improvement.   We missed 20 serves in the 4 games which means that we game an average of 5 points to the Chargers every game.   Our team average on a scale of 3-0 (the lower the score the better), we served a 2.105 making 79% of our serves.   Ideally this should be around 1.800 with the team making between 85-90% of their serves.   In order to achieve this some players need to cut down on their missed serves while others need to serve tougher in order to put the team into easier situations for us to defend.   Overall it was a very consistent team effort that got the job done.   The Mariners will continue their rivalry with the Chargers on two other dates in preseason.   Tuesday September 28 th the two teams will square off at Timberline Secondary in Campbell River (7:00pm start time) and then again on Wednesday October 13 th at Gulf Island Secondary on Salt Spring Island (7:00pm start time).  

Next up for the Mariners is the Team Canada Masters who come into town on Thursday September 23 rd to do battle with the Mariners.   Warm-up is starts at 7:00pm with an official start time of 8:00pm.   Even though these are much older players playing on the Masters team, they are very experienced from their playing days with both Team Canada and their professional teams over in Europe.   Make sure to be there in time to see both of the teams hitting warm-ups.   Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for students.  

After that the Mariners have their own Icebreaker Tourney, September 24/25, held here in Nanaimo.   The 5 other teams attending are Capilano (who was 2 nd in the Nation last year), Camosun, Douglas, University of the Fraser Valley, and a UVIC Alumni team (who won this tourney last year).   This will be great for all the teams involved to get lots of exhibition matches before the season starts.   The Mariners are looking forward to the opportunity to play against the Capilano Blues.   This will be good for us to see where we stand in the league.   The Blues have 5 of their starting line up from last year returning to play this year.   This will be a good test for the Mariners to see what they are made of against one of the Nations best.   Admission is free for the tournament so spectators are encouraged to come out and support the home team.   The Mariners play on Friday at 3:00pm, 4:15pm and 6:45pm.   Saturday's match times will depend on the results of pool play on Friday.   The Mariners plan to be in the semi-finals at 11:00am on Saturday and then in the final at 3:00pm.   Come on out and support your 2004/05 Mariners!!!  

The first match of league play for the Mariners will take place on October 22 nd at home against the rival Camosun Chargers.   Even though the Mariners will have played the Chargers 3-4 times throughout the preseason, this is a great match to start off with.   Nothing brings the intensity up like a good old fashion rivalry!   The Mariners look forward to seeing you out at their matches!!!