Kodiaks volleyball returns to home court, set to welcome Olds

By Lethbridge Herald on February 6, 2026.

Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald

Coming off a bye week, the Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiak volleyball teams are hoping to defend home court.

Lethbridge will play host to the Olds College Broncos tonight and Saturday afternoon at the Val Matteotti Gymnasium. The Kodiaks had an idle weekend after traveling to Caronport, Sask. for a set with the Briercrest College Clippers.

The Kodiak men were swept by Briercrest, but both matches went the full five sets. Kodiak head coach Greg Gibos says Lethbridge will look to get back on track this weekend.

“If you look at a lot of things statistically from our weekend in Briercrest, it’s kind of shocking that we walked away with two losses. The biggest thing for us is just finding confidence again, it’s now like flipping the script and becoming that team that we’ve been for for such a long period of time which is a really group of confident, dynamic and excited athletes. Nothing does that more than a playoff spot on the line and a home crowd in the Val. I can’t ask for more than that on a Friday and Saturday night.”

Lethbridge enters the weekend sitting third in the ACAC south division with an 8-5 record on the campaign. The Kodiaks can clinch a playoff spot with a single Lethbridge win in combination with a Medicine Hat loss. The Rattlers are in Red Deer this weekend facing a Kings team that is riding a 10 game winning streak.

Gibos says the Kodiaks can’t afford to look past Olds this weekend.

“Goal one at the beginning of the year is to qualify. Anytime you get in the dance, it’s a great season and the start of something good and we can worry about the rest of stuff after that. It is definitely game by game. We know they’re looking to try to qualify for the playoffs. They’ve just got life. They’re going to come in here trying to fight for it. It’s going to be two hungry teams really battling in February, which is a fun part of sport.”

Olds sits in sixth place in the ACAC south division. The Broncos dropped a pair of games last weekend against Red Deer Polytechnic in a home-and-home. 

Gibos says the Broncos are a better team then their record indicates.

“They’re a really good team behind the service line. Watching that last couple of games of film, I think one thing they’re trying to do is really put pressure on teams from a first contact standpoint, which, credit to them, they’re doing a really good job of that. Their servers are hitting some good spots and we know that’s gonna create a difficult environment for us to run our offense this week. They’ve got some dynamic outside attackers that again can hit the ball with some pretty good pace. So definitely like a challenge. The record definitely does not speak to their skill level and the quality of team. It’s the ACAC south, it’s just a grind. There’s some really good teams that are below .500 just because of the nature of how deep our conference is.”

For the Kodiak women, it was a struggle against Briercrest. Lethbridge was only able to take a single set off the Clippers in the weekend series which came in the third set of the Saturday contest.

Lethbridge currently sits in the bottom of the ACAC south division with a 1-12 record. The only win for the Kodiaks was a forfeit against Lakeland who were facing sanctions related to a hazing investigation back in October and had to forfeit their first eight games of the season.

Head coach Anna Schwark says there were promising signs from the road trip to Briercrest.

“I’m really excited to see the improvements that we’ve made in the last couple weeks. Coming back after Briercrest, I think every year that we return to that gym specifically, we progressively get better. Still lost, which isn’t the most fun or motivating, but the girls did a really good job at staying motivated despite a lot of reasons to not be.”

Despite the lack of success in the win column, the Kodiaks haven’t been deterred. Schwark says Lethbridge was eager to get practice and she is happy that the team was ready to get back to work.

“As a group we’re doing something right but I’m doing something right and I am making a difference. They are having fun. I want them through all the wins and the losses and success and failure for it to be fun. I want them to enjoy their time with me and our coaching staff and with each other. Just those little moments, no matter how small they are, they’re huge for me and just the reassurance that I’m providing them what they want, that I’m helping increase their confidence, that they feel like they’re learning and so that’s been really cool and in turn, even if they maybe hadn’t verbally mentioned it. I could just see through their body language and their engagement that they’ve really enjoyed the second semester of training and they’re really bought in right now. It makes me excited to want to be here for a few hours every night of the week.”

The women tip off at 6 p.m. tonight followed by the men. On Saturday, the women start at 1 followed by the men at 3.