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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

A big threat at the net

Wesmen's Duff puts lessons he learned on national team to good use

By: Allan Besson

2/12/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Canada West male athlete of the week Justin Duff says competing against professional volleyball players taught him a lot about the game.

Justin Duff is on his way to becoming a complete volleyball player.

"I'm a work in progress," said the 6-foot-7 middle hitter for the University of Winnipeg Wesmen. "Things are going all right. I expected things would be good."

Over the summer, Duff's stock skyrocketed as he competed with Canada's national team at the Pan Am Cup in Mexico, FISU Games in Serbia and the NORCECA men's tournament in Puerto Rico, where the team qualified for the world championships in September.

"We won silver in Mexico and finished sixth in Serbia and fourth at Puerto Rico," Duff said.

Though the team has qualified, no one on the 20-man roster has a stranglehold on their position with the squad yet.

"They will pick 12 to go, and so it's not for certain," Duff said. Things will be clearer when the national team gathers again for a training camp in May at Gatineau, Que.

But Duff has been showered with praise this week.

On Tuesday, he was selected as the Canada West male athlete of the week. The fourth-year middle led the No. 9-ranked Wesmen to a pair of victories over the Thompson Rivers Wolfpack over the weekend at the Duckworth Centre. He finished the two-match series with 28 kills, seven blocks, six defensive digs and an attack percentage of .590. In Saturday's opening match, he had 12 kills in a 3-1 win. On Sunday, he had a match-high 16 kills and three blocks for a 3-0 sweep.

Canada West statistics list Duff as second in hitting percentage (.457), fourth in total points (155) and seventh in kills (3.47 kills per game).

Duff credits much of his success this year to his stint with the national team. "There was a lot that I took for granted, so I had to adjust because everyone was so tough and big."

He said that going up against professional athletes taught him so much about the finer points of the game.

"A lot touched on being precise and mastering a skill," he said. "Just to be able to perform every day, in every situation, made the mental part of the sport so much more demanding."

Duff explained "being precise" as "like when you are not very skilled at a certain aspect of the game, you have a bigger margin for error, but as you increase your skill, that margin of error goes down."

In addition to the Canada West honour, he was named the U of W male athlete of the week and the Lea Marc Printing Wesmen athlete of the month.

Everything he has learned over the summer has transferred onto the university court.

"I'm better now at going in and performing every day, as compared to only some of the time," he says. "Just by knowing what works in national competition, I get more shots now, and I'm smarter when I play."

The Wesmen (4-5), won't see conference action until the new year, but the Maples Collegiate graduate and his team will play a couple of exhibition games at the University of California at Irvine, beginning Dec. 28.

Lauren Sears is the Wesmen female athlete of the week. Sears was instrumental in helping the Wesmen women to a two-match volleyball sweep over Thompson Rivers. In Saturday's opening match, she had 12 kills, four service aces, three digs and four blocks in a 3-1 victory.

Meantime, Sonia Rossy is the Lea Marc Printing Wesmen female athlete of the month. In November, Rossy had 125 digs (17.8 per match), 59 kills (8.43 per match), five service aces and eight blocks.

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 2, 2009 C6

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