Bisons win tournament in Ottawa
Ross Prusakowski, the Fulcrum (University of Ottawa)
Photo by Jason Chiu
OTTAWA — While their fellow students were enjoying the waning days of their winter breaks, the No. 1-ranked University of Manitoba Bisons, along with five other women’s volleyball teams, congregated in Ottawa Jan. 3-5 to participate in the 25th annual University of Ottawa Gee-Gees Invitational tournament. Joining the Bisons in the tournament were the host Ottawa Gee-Gees, the Laurier Golden Hawks, the New Brunswick Varsity Reds, and two other teams featured in the CIS top 10 — the No. 8-ranked McGill Redmen and the No. 6-ranked Sherbrooke Vert-et-Or.
After a spirited-but-gruelling two and a half days during which each team play five games, the finals featured the Bisons taking on the host Gee-Gees. In the end, the Bisons had some hardware to take home as they swept away the Gee-Gees 3–0 (25–16, 25–23, 25–14) to capture first place.
“[Manitoba] is clearly where number 1 is, but we proved this weekend that we are top-eight, top-six team, and that’s awesome,” Ottawa head coach Lionel Woods said. “I’m thrilled with our performance this weekend, I just wish we’d been able to play Manitoba with a little more in the tank.”
Key to the Bisons’ victory was their ability to eliminate errors from their game and to capitalize on the multitude of errors that an obviously tired Gee-Gees team allowed — a style of play that, while unspectacular, was consistent throughout the tournament and the finals and an obvious reason why the Bisons have been ranked number 1 in the country for the first seven weeks of this season.
“We were probably at the end of our gas tank and they were at the beginning of theirs,” said Ottawa head coach, Lionel Woods. “For us to get [to the finals] we had to exhaust everything we had. I think if we’re going to compete and get to the 20s and 21s against them we need to be at our best.”
“If both teams were fresher [in the finals] I’m guessing it would have been a totally different match,” Ottawa right side Ariane Thibault added. “At one point I was thinking ‘Oh man, my legs are so tired,’ and you train your hardest — and this isn’t an excuse to what the result of the game was — but it was demanding because usually in our league games we’re playing max two games a weekend.”
While this tournament marked the first action for Ottawa since the beginning of December, it was the culmination to a long holiday road trip for Manitoba. The Bisons were retuning to Canada after sweeping away a different trio of CIS schools to capture a tournament in Florida from Dec. 27-29.
The Gee-Gees invitational marked the end of the exhibition schedule for all six teams involved and the start of the run towards the CIS national championships, which will be hosted by the University of New Brunswick from Feb. 28 to March 1. For the Bisons, it provided a strong indication of just how strong they are compared to some of the best teams in the CIS and provided some experience that could valuable come nationals.
“This was a huge tournament for us because a bunch of these teams could potentially be at nationals,” Manitoba head coach Ken Bentley said. “[One of these teams] could be a first or second round match for us. We still have to get [to nationals] and that’s a tough task from our conference, but if we do, we’ll certainly play some of these teams again so in that respect the tournament has been great preparation for us.”
The Bisons return to Canada West action this weekend as they welcome seventh-ranked Trinity Western to the Investors Group Athletic Centre on Jan. 12 and 13. First serve for both games comes across the net at 1 p.m.
