Amateur Sports

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Ah, finally, Munt makes nationals

By: Ashley Prest

Posted: 02/18/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

THE University of Manitoba men's volleyball team earned a berth at the nationals for the first time since 2005-06 on Friday night and no one was happier than captain Ryan Munt.

Munt, in his fifth and final season, and the Bisons defeated the UBC-Okanagan Heat 25-19, 25-20, 25-20 at the Investors Group Athletic Centre. With the victory, the Bisons won the best-of-three Canada West conference quarterfinal series 2-0. Manitoba now heads to the Canada West Final Four on Feb. 25-26 at Trinity Western University.

However, since there are four Canada West berths at nationals this year, the Bisons qualified for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship March 2-4 at Queen's University.

"I finally get in my fifth year. There's not many players that haven't been to nationals when they play all five years at the U of M so I wanted to make sure I wasn't on that list," Munt said. "It feels good to finally accomplish that."

At the Duckworth Centre, the Winnipeg Wesmen women's volleyball team defeated the Manitoba Bisons 25-18, 25-17, 25-22 to win that best-of-three quarter-final series 2-0. Lauren Sears led the Wesmen with 14 kills and the fifth-year captain will now lead her team to the Canada West Final Four Feb. 24-25 at UBC.

"The weight of the whole world was off our shoulders tonight. We knew Manitoba would come out tough but we played more like the way our team has been playing this season," said Wesmen coach Diane Scott, whose team finished the regular season ranked No. 3 in the country with a 14-6 record. "I'm very happy we played so well. We played very disciplined defensively, we had big digs, key blocks."

Three teams from the women's Final Four will qualify for the CIS national championship.

Bisons men's head coach Garth Pischke will now take a U of M team to the national championship for the 26th time in 31 years.

"I'm going to stick with these guys. I'm a little choked up right now because it means a lot to get back there (to nationals), we've been away for a few years," said Garth Pischke, who will be looking for a 23rd medal at nationals. "This team has played well all year, I have the utmost confidence in them. I'm really looking forward to the next level because I really believe that our best match wins this whole thing. It's going take everybody and everything."

The Bisons (18-2) finished the regular season ranked No. 2 in Canada.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 18, 2012 C6

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