Airdrie's Haley Roe played a key role in helping the Mount Royal University (MRU) Cougars women's volleyball team achieve program history on March 27.
The fourth-year outside hitter put up a game-high 15 kills as the Cougars took home MRU volleyball's first-ever medal at a U SPORTS national championship since the school joined U SPORTS in 2012-13. MRU fell three sets to one in the U SPORTS national championship game against the Trinity Western University Spartans, to earn silver.
While the Cougars couldn't quite clinch the national banner, Roe said the players were feeling great after the initial disappointment wore off, having recognized the scope of their achievement in the days afterwards.
“I’m just so proud of us for what we accomplished these last couple of weeks,” the Bert Church High School alumna said. “It was obviously program history, so it was very cool to be a part of that. We worked really hard to get there and proved we’re a good team. It was just really awesome.”
The Cougars qualified for the U SPORTS national championships – hosted at the University of Calgary from March 25 to 27 – after a strong regular season that saw the squad finish second in the Canada West conference with a 14-4 record.
After the regular-season schedule had wrapped up, MRU made it to nationals with a bronze-medal performance at the Canada West championships with a 5-2 record.
Roe said the team's chemistry set the Cougars apart this year.
“It’s one of the bigger teams I’ve been a part of – we had 20 players – and we worked really hard to make connections and relationships with each other,” the 22-year-old said. “This is definitely the closest team I’ve been a part of. We were all good friends and spent a lot of time together. We have a lot of fun out there on the court, and other teams notice that too.”
Once they were at nationals, MRU started strong by sweeping the Brock Badgers and the University of Alberta Pandas to book a spot in the final, against the Spartans.
Having the U SPORTS nationals held in Calgary meant a considerable cohort of her Airdrie friends and family were able to watch Roe compete.
“It was insane and a cool thing to be a part of,” she said. “It was basically a hometown crowd and we had so much support.”
Roe has spent her whole post-secondary volleyball career with the Cougars, having studied at the Calgary-based university since 2017.
From an individual perspective, she had one of her strongest seasons in 2021-22, and after a powerful performance in the national final, was even named to the tournament's all-star team.
As a fourth-year member of the women's volleyball team, Roe acknowledges she has become one of the Cougars leaders on and off the court. With one more year of U SPORTS eligibility, she said she's keen to help MRU repeat – and hopefully surpass – their accomplishments from this season.
“I’ve been here for so long now, and it’s been a cool experience,” Roe said. “Obviously with the tough things COVID brought, it was a lot of growth and we had some changes on our team.
“But this year was so incredible. Especially coming off the last nationals being cancelled...it was so cool to come back this year and after everything we’d been through, get back to nationals and medal. It was a special thing for me and I’m excited to have an extra year to stick around and try and do it again.
“I’m proud of this team. We worked hard to get there and we’ll definitely be back next year, for that banner.”
