It was a record setting weekend for the Redeemer Royals as the program grabbed eight wins in a span of 24 hours. It is the first time in program history that the Royals have registered eight league wins in one weekend. women's volleyball, men's volleyball, women's basketball and men's basketball all walked away with a pair of victories each.
The excitement started on Friday evening when Redeemer's basketball teams hit the road to Sudbury for a match-up against the Cambrian Golden Shield. Some bad weather and even worse traffic had the Royals arriving at the Cambrian Athletic Centre after the scheduled start. However, a delayed tip-off time gave the Royals a much needed warm-up.
Despite sitting on a bus for eight hours straight, Redeemer was able to come out strong from the start and showed no signs of rust. The Lady Royals were victorious 68-51 while the men thumped the home team 103-66. The men's team walked away with their most lopsided victory of the season and their first 100-point game.
Jesseca Brown had 21 points and eight rebounds in Friday's win for the Lady Royals while Benn Ibrahim had a double-double in the men's game with 27 points and 10 rebounds.
After some much needed rest, the Royals were back at it again on Saturday in their second games against Cambrian. Strong starts for both squads gave Redeemer the early lead in both games. The matches Saturday proved to be much closer contests but the Royals came out on top with a 79-66 win in the women's game and a narrow 79-70 win in the men's game.
Arica Price led all Royals in scoring in the women's game on Saturday with 25 points. Ibrahim had a team-high 15 points on Saturday and added seven rebounds in the men's game.
The women's record jumps up to 6-9 while the men's team sits at 7-8.
While the basketball teams hit the road, the volleyball teams were finally back at home after four straight games away from the Redeemer Athletic Centre. Redeemer's last home games were against St. Clair back on Nov. 30.
Both volleyball teams had little trouble securing their first home wins of 2014 as the teams dropped just one set in the four weekend matches. The Lady Royals swept the Boréal Vipères (25-17, 25-23, 25-11) on Friday night and followed it up on Saturday with another 3-0 (25-20, 25-21, 26-24) win against the Cambrian Golden Shield.
Curtiss Straatsma led the Royals on Friday with 14 points while Straatsma and Charlene DeVries each had 12 points in the victory on Saturday.
The Lady Royals have now won six of their last seven matches with their one loss coming at the hands of the No. 3-ranked team in Canada, the Humber Hawks.
The women's record improves to 10-4.
The men's team looked to get back into the win column after dropping two straight matches for just the second time this season. After a disappointing loss to Sheridan College, 3-2 on Jan. 18, the Royals took out their frustration with a dominating set of matches on Friday and Saturday. The Royals defeated Boréal on Friday night 3-1 (25-7, 25-19, 26-28, 25-17) and Cambrian College on Saturday 3-0 (25-16, 25-18, 25-20).
Kevin Semplonius and Shawn Brus had a team-high 10 points each for Redeemer on Friday.
Eric Heidbuurt led the Royals on Saturday with 19 kills and 21 total points.
The men's record improves to 9-5.
Source: Redeemer University College