Sears provides critical point

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Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg�s Lauren Sears drives the ball through a Bison blocker Thursday at the Duckworth Centre.

The University of Winnipeg women's volleyball team closed a collective fist around their first playoff appearance since 2006 on Thursday night at the Duckworth Centre.

Finding themselves locked in five-set battle with the Manitoba Bisons, the Wesmen looked to captain Lauren Sears for the match point to take a 24-26, 25-23, 19-25, 29-27, 15-9 victory over the Herd.

Winnipeg took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series. The two teams meet again tonight at 7 p.m. at the U of W.

"There's a lot of pride. We're new team, this is our moment, we've worked so hard," said Tesca Andrew-Wasylik, Winnipeg's libero, who led all players with 29 digs. "We were just resilient on everything, even if we were down, we went for momentum. (Tomorrow) we need to come back and just be consistent."

At the U of M Investors Group Athletic Centre, coach Garth Pischke's No. 2-ranked Bisons men's volleyball team defeated the UBC Okanagan Heat 25-21, 27-25, 25-21 to take a 1-0 lead in that best-of-three quarter-final series. The two teams meet for the second match tonight at 7 p.m. at the IGAC,

The Bison men are now one match victory away from earning a berth in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship March 2-4 at Queen's University. This year, all four men's Canada West qualifiers for the Final Four tournament Feb. 25-26 at Trinity Western also all qualify for the national championship.

"It's a good situation for us, we'd love to get back to nationals but we're going to have to earn our way there (tomorrow)," Garth Pischke said in a telephone interview following his team's match. Chris Voth had 12 kills and Dane Pischke had nine kills for the Bisons.

"In both the second and third sets we gave up some runs of four and five points so we'll have to do a better job of limiting that."

The winner of the women's match will go to the Final Four at UBC on Feb. 24-25.

In the fourth set, the Bisons women trailed 24-21 and tied it 24-24. The Wesmen faced set point five times before they finally put the set away.

"The Bisons played a great match, but they just played on adrenaline there, they had nothing to lose, and we had a little too much weight on us," said Wesmen head coach Diane Scott. "I'm pleased with our win, but we didn't play efficient in the first three sets, and I liked how we came back to win that fourth set. This is a new frontier for us and we'll need to be better (today)."

The Bisons threw a wrinkle at the Wesmen, starting fifth-year veteran Kristi Hunter in the middle, a move that paid huge dividends until she sprained her ankle in the second set and had to leave the match.

"She was playing amazing and we felt really good about our level of play, but after that, I am totally impressed with how we continued to fight, came back from that big deficit to win the third set," said Bisons head coach Ken Bentley.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 17, 2012 C5