Although the Thunder lost all three sets to the second-best team in the league, they still managed to stand their ground Jan. 31.
“We competed well,” said Coach Everton Senior of the match against Canadore. “We didn’t quit.”
Quitting wasn’t an issue during the game, but according to the coach and players, servicing was the main difficulty.
“Our servicing definitely needed work,” said Julianna Tebrake, one of the team’s middles. “We’re really struggling on that right now.”
The coach said that while they had been working hard all year on improving their servicing, it was still failing them.
The team was also nervous which was also the source of some mistakes made throughout the game.
“I think everyone was really tense,” said Alixandra Burkart, another one of the team’s middles. “We thought we needed a win when we really didn’t.”
On the other hand the Panther’s coach claimed that Algonquin’s performance was impressive.
“I thought they (Algonquin) played really well,” said coach Stefanie Hancock. “Their third setter distributed the ball very well.”
Thunder players were satisfied with how they played and agreed that certain aspects of their game had been great.
“Our communication was pretty good on the court,” said right side Victoria Waizmann. “We were able to adjust to their serving quickly.”
The team considers itself to be a more offense-orientated team, but was very pleased with its strong defense throughout this game.
“I think our blocking was really good today,” said Tebrake. “We were consistent with that.”
Another success of the game was how they stayed emotionally strong, even while losing.
“We used to struggle with keeping our emotions inside,” said Burkart. “But we played a lot better today and didn’t get carried away with them.”