Bisons take silver at women's volleyball final four
Despite the loss, team is still headed to nationals
TESSA VANDERHART STAFF
PHOTO CREDIT: TESSA VANDERHART
The Bisons women’s volleyball team took silver at the Canada West final four, played from Feb. 23-24, an excellent result considering that the team lacked the energy and drive that got them to an 18-2 record and the nation’s No. 1 ranking.
All four teams at the tournament — the University of Alberta Pandas, the Trinity Western Spartans, the University of Calgary Dinos, and the Bisons — had already qualified for the CIS National Championships, to be held March 1-3 at the U of C.
By finishing first in Canada West, the Bisons got to host the final four, which determined playoff position for the nationals.
The Bisons started the weekend against the U of C Dinos. Though the Bisons were ranked No. 1 in Canada West and the Dinos tied for third (with Trinity Western), the Feb. 23 game was tight — even tighter than the 3-2 Bisons win (25-23, 19-25, 25-17, 17-25, 16-14) suggests.
The Bisons struggled through the first set; despite the closeness of the score, they were constantly playing catch-up to the Dinos. They woke up in the second set, with great kills by Sarah Morrissette, Monica Chernichan, and Amy Matthews, but from point 10 on, the Bisons loss was a foregone conclusion.
The third set was highly dramatic, each point hard-fought as the scoreboard grew singularly, until the Bisons pulled ahead at 13-12 — and the set was over before the Dinos even knew it.
The fourth set was rather unremarkable. Service errors and nerves ruled as the Bisons finished the fifth, final, and forthwith set faster than Ashley Voth’s closing kill.
The game was predicated by the Canada West awards ceremony, at which Voth was named CW Rookie of the Year and second-team all-star, an honour also awarded captain Sabrina Barnes, who led the Bisons this year with 242 digs. Coach Ken Bentley was named CW Coach of the Year for the first time in his 20-year tenure. Meanwhile, Bisons setter Katie Davidson was named to the first-team all-star.
Later Friday night, the Trinity Western University Spartans faced the University of Alberta Pandas to decide the Bisons’ competitor in the gold-medal game. Dominated by CW MVP Tiffany Dodds’ 19 kills, the U of A Pandas took the game 3-2 (20-25, 25-21, 25-11, 20-25, 15-11).
This meant that the Spartans faced the Dinos on Saturday, Feb. 24 for the final four’s bronze-medal game. The Dinos swept the Spartans 3-0 (25-17, 27-25, 25-23), with the help of Lauren Perry’s 11 kills and 11 digs, not to mention their exceptionally tight jerseys — though TWU managed to notch an impressive five service aces and were dug out by CW Libero of the Year (that’s a defensive specialist, if you didn’t know), Julie Blackburn.
The Alberta Pandas took the Canada West gold-medal game 3-1 (25-18, 25-21,
23-25, 25-21), the result of robot-like killing by Panda Tiffany Dodds.
Dodds, a 6-foot-3 third-year University of Alberta student, had an amazing
288 kills on the year — tacking on 18 more in the gold-medal game.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Dodds, on winning gold. “We
have a really good roster. It was a total collective team effort; it’s
just another stepping stone for us.”
Bisons coach Bentley said almost about the same thing about his team’s
efforts.
“You could put a blanket over this league — they’re all the same,” he said, adding that the team’s goal was qualifying for the nationals.
“We’ve been national champions more than we’ve been league champions,” said Bentley, citing his 20 years of experience.
As for the loss, “They probably wanted to be more disappointed than I allowed them to. I wanted them to be disappointed for five or 10 minutes,” Bentley said.
“I think we could have done a lot better,” Bisons right side Sarah Morrissette said, citing the team’s lack of passing as a losing factor.
Bisons middle Erin Nieuwenburg attributed the loss to “a little bit of everything, but mostly execution.”
“We didn’t have all of our fight in us this night,” Niewenburg said. “Probably at the beginning of the game we could have gone out with a little more intensity.”
But, as Morrissette said, “Pressure situations are when we tend to play very well. So we’re very excited” for the nationals.
The Bisons will aim higher than silver at the CIS National Championships, March 1-3 at the University of Calgary. Their second-place finish gives them the third seed in the championship, against Canada West third-place finishers the Trinity Western University Spartans.
