The Camosun Chargers teams have been—for the most part—successful in their first half of the season. And three of the four teams competing in the Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST) are in the top two seeds. This solid start sets them up to try and win it all in the second half of the season.
The men’s basketball team has started the season with a record of 9-3 and are the second seed in their conference, only behind Vancouver Island University (VIU). Guard Eric Lees says the team’s success this year can be attributed to their playing style.
“We’re a very strong defensive team,” says Lees. “I think that’s what we buy into every year through our coach, who tries to instill that into us through really hard practices.”
The team has consistently had one of the best defenses in the league ever since coach Geoff Pippus was hired—and they’ve gradually improved their results each year, this year being no different. The team is looking to win it all in the PACWEST and improve their placing at nationals.
“I think our entire team’s goal is to win the PACWEST championship this year, get a solid gold,” says Lees. “But not even just that, I think we want to further our success from last year, when [we went to] nationals and got fourth [place], and go for a medal at nationals this year.”
On the other hand, the women’s basketball team is the only Chargers team with a losing record, 2-10, and is the sixth seed in the PacWest, currently in the last spot for the playoffs.
The team started the season 2-1 as their starting point guard Abby Rauh got injured in the fourth game. Since then, the team has lost nine games in a row. However, coach John Dedrick says the first half of the season has positive takeaways.
“I think it’s a building process… some nights we’ve struggled a lot, but sometimes we’ve been right with the top teams heading into the fourth quarter and then not having success,” says Dedrick. “Looking on the brighter side of things, we’ve shown that we can play with some of the better teams. We just now have to find a way in the second semester to finish the games strongly.”
The team lost some very important players in the off-season with many starting players leaving. There are many new players and some returning players that haven’t had a lot of playing time. Dedrick says the future has potential built on strong player relationships.
“I think that the biggest thing when I was hired was to create a little bit of a more positive team culture,” says Dedrick. “For the future, we have a few veterans that are going to be staying and finishing their eligibility. And then we have good transfers and some good basketball players who epitomize what it is to be a student athlete. And so once you’ve got a little bit of a culture established and then you also add these types of… student athletes into the mix, then I think the program’s only going to grow and become more competitive.”
But the year still held success for Chargers women’s teams. The women’s volleyball team has had yet another amazing year. Their record in the first half of the season is 7-3 and they are the second seed in the PACWEST, only behind VIU, who is 9-1. Starting setter and captain of the team Avery Hansen says refinements can be made to finish the season even stronger.
“I think our consistency [can be improved], for sure, being able to just keep playing throughout the game even when things start kind of going sideways,” says Hansen. “We’ve been practicing that a lot now, in our practices now that the first semester has been done.”
While the Chargers women’s volleyball won third place last year in the PACWEST playoffs, Hansen believes this team has enough to top that.
“I for sure think we’re a championship team,” says Hansen. “I think we can do it if we learn how to get through the tough games and push through it when it gets hard. I think we can win the PACWEST and, hopefully, the nationals.”
Also in volleyball, after last season’s ups and downs, the Chargers men’s volleyball team has had a great start to their season this time around.
They have a record of 7-3 and stand only behind the College of the Rockies (COTR), whose record is 10-0. They are looking for revenge this season after losing in the bronze medal game last year against COTR in the PACWEST playoffs.
As the two top teams in the conference, it looks possible that there will be a rematch of last year’s bronze medal match, however, this time with a gold medal on the line.