A season-opening suspension has been served, but the Lakeland Rustlers men’s volleyball team returned to the court last weekend with much more of a new look than the college club had initially planned.
Read more: Rustlers show no rustatop ACAC hockey
After an Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference hazing investigation resulted in a four-game suspension to the men’s team, and an even longer ban for the Lakeland women’s club, the male Rustlers shuffled their roster deck.
They finally opened the regular season last weekend, winning over the SAIT Trojans on Saturday after losing to the Lethbridge Kodiaks on Friday, but they did so with a mostly young lineup.
“After some of the stuff that we had to go through this semester, to start, some of the guys decided that it may be best for their career, and for our program, to maybe take a redshirt year and come back that much stronger moving forward,” said Taylor Dyer, the men’s coach at Lakeland College.
“There’s lots of positives to that. There’s some negatives, too, (because) we’re not fielding our strongest lineup that we could be.
“(But) it’s just going to build us for the future. These young guys get a full year of game competition, so then they’ll (be able to) take over for that older group once they’re done next year.”
Most notably, the group of five redshirting Rustlers includes ACAC all-star Brock Tomyn, who was on the bench in street clothes and holding a clipboard during last weekend’s games.
It’s like having another assistant coach — or more — on the sidelines.
“Yeah, for sure,” Dyer concurred Saturday night as he listed the redshirt contingent. “A bunch of those guys were veteran leaders in our room, whether that’s Brock (Tomyn) or Kiefer (Sinclair), Declan (Mercer), Ian (Cousin), or Gabriel (Brinchmann Bjorkas). Those five, that’s a big chunk of our leadership group. So, yeah, it is like having more coaches on the bench with us and helping those young guys out not only in our competition, but in our training as well.
“We’ve been trying to put ourselves into a good spot, with our training.”
Not permitted to play ACAC games since the pre-season, the Rustlers have had more than their share of training and practice time during the past six weeks. So, the season-opening anticipation was that much more palpable last Friday.
It was like waiting for the school bell to ring, or counting down the days until exams finish and summer vacation begins.
“It’s nice to finally get on the court with this group and, hopefully, have a really strong season,” Dyer said Saturday after his Rustlers defeated SAIT 3-1 (25-22, 25-22, 16-25 and 25-21).
“We have a large team (numbers-wise). We’re really deep. So, the training environment has been really, really good. But, again, it doesn’t quite prepare you for ACAC league competition. It’s so strong and, obviously, it feels so different (from simply practising).”
In their Friday match, the Rustlers lost 3-0 (25-16, 25-23 and 25-19) to Lethbridge.
“Yeah, some growing pains, as far as we’re not quite where we want to be,” Dyer said in evaluating the weekend. “Game experience is going to help with that tremendously, so we’ve just got to be patient and hopefully we can strive to continue to get better.
“This is going to be a little bit of a different year, with a little bit of a different lineup — a little less veteran. So, it’s going to take us a little bit to get to a point where we’re going to maybe feel more comfortable.”
As for losing all that veteran experience for this year, at least, the Rustlers’ coaching staff supports the decision of those players who are redshirting, Dyer said.
“In the end, we left that decision up to them. This is their volleyball journey and their career, and their academic career as well. The way it worked out for them, they thought that might be the best option, the best route. I’ll support them in whatever decision they decided to make.”
Excluding the five players who are redshirting, and another ineligible for academic reasons,
the Rustlers are still carrying 16 players on their active roster.
“For me, it’s another opportunity for this year to be a big step forward for our program, and for those young guys who will be taking over,” Dyer said. “I’m excited to be able to see what we can get out of these young guys. They’re going to play a bunch. The trademark for them is growth this year, for sure. But again, we’ve been deep for a couple of years, so this group doesn’t lack the talent. We’re still really excited about what we can do.
“We beat a really talented SAIT team tonight. They were trying to get back into it, and our guys persevered. Being young and youthful, for them to be able to pull that off and win that fourth set when it was close, again that’s game experience that they haven’t had an opportunity to have quite yet. They’re getting that now, which will help them down the road.”
For now, the Rustlers own a 1-5 record at the bottom of the North Division standings. Their coach believes his players have done what they could in preparing for the delayed season, and in co-operating with the ACAC investigation.
“The guys have been super resilient,” Dyer said. “They’re up front and honest. They did the right thing in the end.
“We ended up getting sanctioned for it. That’s life. It’s a life lesson for a lot of them. Obviously, nobody wants to not get to play for four matches, but they took it and we’ll learn from it. It’s quite a bit in the rearview (mirror) now, for this group. Now that we’re playing, we can get back to it.”
Lakeland is back in action this weekend for road matches on Friday evening against the Briercrest Clippers and Saturday night versus the Medicine Hat Rattlers.
The Rustlers’ women’s volleyball team soon completes its eight-game suspension. Both Lakeland teams visit Ambrose University
in Calgary on Nov. 28.
Read more: Rustlers record third win in row
