Wesmen Advance Past Dinos With Straight Sets Win

WINNIPEG — The Winnipeg Wesmen are moving on in the Canada West post-season. 

The Wesmen women's volleyball team kept the Calgary Dinos at bay for three sets and pulled off a convincing 3-0 (25-22, 25-20, 25-16) win in the decisive third match of the conference play-in series Saturday at the Duckworth Centre.

The Wesmen now move on to take on the Alberta Pandas in a best-of-three quarter-final next week in Edmonton.

To get there, though, the Wesmen put up one of their more comprehensive efforts of the season, attacking at .264 for the match while holding Calgary to .109. Winnipeg had nine total blocks as a team and 49 digs, which stymied a Dinos attack that was impressive in a Match 2 win on Friday night. 

"We were better today because of what we went through (Friday)," Wesmen head coach Phil Hudson said. "It was a great feeling for (the team) to be able to handle the pressure and stress.. There was a couple of times where we weren't in control … but we just managed to get by. I was really proud of how the girls responded to a do-or-die thing."

The Dinos had a modest three-point lead midway through the first set but a run of four out of six points from Winnipeg tipped the scales to the home side. Still, the Dinos did manage to pull back in front at 22-21 before the Wesmen tore off four straight to close it out.

In Set 2, the Wesmen broke a 5-5 tie with seven points out of eight and went ahead by as many as 10 at 18-8. Calgary threatened with a run that got it to 22-19 before the Wesmen benefitted from two Calgary service errors to go up two sets. 

The Wesmen had one more decisive stretch in them in the third set that seized ultimate control. With the score tied 14, Winnipeg won nine of the next 10 points to go up 23-14 before finishing it off with a Grace Vallis kill. 

"It looked like the team that was going after it got it," Calgary head coach Christine Biggs said. "I think we've got a really exciting young group and that's a cool thing that we get to work with going forward.

"I think there were moments of compete by both (teams) but, yeah, the Wesmen showed up for every point like they wanted it." 

Brooke Duncalfe led Winnipeg with 15 kills and 11 digs and middle blocker Vallis had eight kills on 11 swings with a season-high six digs. Ella Werbiski was also in double digits with a match-high 12 digs. 

The Dinos were once again paced by Sophia Hansen who had a team-high 14 kills and eight digs. Leni Blanke added a team-high nine digs.