The College of the Rockies Lady Avalanche volleyball team has advanced to the semifinals at the 2016 PACWEST Provincial Championships after upsetting the No. 3-ranked Camosun College Chargers.
The No. 6-seed Lady Avs collected a 3-1 victory (25-21, 23-25, 26-24, 25-18) over the Chargers Thursday afternoon at Columbia Bible College, host site of the 2016 provincials championships.
"When we came into the tournament, you can go by the adage of we had nothing to lose and there's no pressure on us," Avalanche head coach John Swanson said to Ryan Watters of PACWEST following Thursday's victory. "No disrespect to Camosun, but we've actually played them well this season. We've had a good match up with them, so we went in with the attitude of, why not us?
"Camosun is a very good team and it was a very good challenge, but we really didn't want to play on the rankings too much coming in. We knew how we played against them head-to-head and we came in with some confidence."
The Lady Avs faced the Chargers four times over the course of the 2015-16 regular season, going 3-1 with the only loss coming in the teams' first meeting Nov. 28 at Camoson.
The underdog Avalanche finished the PACWEST regular season with a 9-15 record, while the Chargers arrived at the provincial championships following a 13-11 campaign.
The art of the upset is nothing new to the Lady Avalanche.
Making their second consecutive appearance at the provincial tournament, the Lady Avs began the 2015 championships with an upset victory over the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades in quarter-final action before falling to the Chargers in the semifinals.
Outside hitter Kelsey Thompson led the Lady Avs with 17 kills and nine digs Thursday afternoon, while libero Alexa Koshman registered 10 digs. Outside hitter Adriel Goodman was named Player of the Match with eight kills to her credit.
With the victory, the Lady Avalanche advance to the semifinals, which get underway Friday afternoon beginning at 2 p.m. (Mountain).
On the men's side of competition, the No. 5-ranked Avalanche take on the No. 4-seeded University of the Fraser Valley Cascades at 9 p.m. (Mountain) Thursday night.
The 2016 PACWEST Provincial Volleyball Championship is being hosted by Bearcat Athletics out of Columbia Bible College, located in Abbotsford, B.C.
Notes: As a part of the provincial festivities, PACWEST awards were handed out Wednesday afternoon, with Kelsey Thompson named a first-team all-star and Patrik Toze recognized as a part of the all-rookie team…