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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Volleyball men roll near Games podium

Solid team play beats Sask. in quarter-final

By: Tim Campbell

Posted: 08/28/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Dugald paddler Andri Shchudlo on the Canada Games podium with his silver Thursday. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The road has not been without a pothole or two but Manitoba's men's volleyball team is still on the medals highway at the Canada Summer Games in P.E.I.

Manitoba bounced Saskatchewan 3-0 (25-15, 25-17, 25-19) in Thursday's quarter-final action at the Chi-Wan Sports Centre, advancing to today's semifinal game against 5-0 Ontario.

"It's such a game of relationships, between setters and attackers, blockers and defence," said Manitoba head coach Cam Johnson via phone Thursday night. "Those relationships are getting tighter.

"We're a young team comparatively but everybody brings their own little piece. We're starting to get some synergy and the whole of the team is a lot stronger. We're starting to fall into the groove, bringing a better collective effort."

All of that's going to be required, given the tightness of the competition and the level of play.

Alberta will play B.C. in today's other semifinal.

It was a preliminary-round loss to 4-0 Alberta that pushed Manitoba to zero in on a few areas.

After winning the first game, Manitoba was bounced in the next three.

"They have a tremendous block defence system, and they dug a lot of balls, 54 balls to our 32 balls; the rest was that they were more efficient in their attack, better than us on that night," Johnson said of the team's only loss of the event.

"We talked about the fact we'd find teams at this tournament that would force you to elevate your game and be a better player if you want to keep winning. You have to expand and find new things as a player.

"So the next day in the morning, we accepted what happened, let it go and refocused and have tuned into a more positive perspective."

In Thursday's playoff against Saskatchewan, Johnson said he'd have liked his team to start a little quicker.

"We didn't come out of the gates firing," he said. "We've been trying to get a little better at that in each set, each game."

In the second game, Manitoba led 8-3 and then the teams were tied at 15.

"In that set, there were a couple of stretches where they scored some points off their serve, and we fell apart a little, stopped passing the ball like we can," Johnson said. "But we refocused and carried on from there.

"From the outset, we thought any of the four teams can win a gold medal. The teams are really tight and playing well. Our (semifinal) match, it'll be a very tough match, we'll have to prepare and play well."

Manitoba's women will also be in a semifinal game today.

After going 5-0 in the preliminary round, it's an afternoon date today against Nova Scotia.

Gold-medal matches in both divisions take place Saturday.

Elsewhere at the Games on Thursday, swimmer Chantal Vanlandeghem of Winnipeg collected her fourth medal in the pool.

Vanlandeghem won silver in the women's 200-metre backstroke in P.E.I.

In a reversal of results from her gold-medal swims on Tuesday and Wednesday, Vanlandeghem this time lost to Ontario's Sinead Russell. Russell swam two minutes 8.30 seconds to win by .45 of a second.

Manitoba scored two other medals on Thursday.

One of them was a rare paddling medal when Dugald's Andri Shchudlo captured silver in the canoe-kayak 2,000-metre C-1 final.

At the track, Melanie Gregoire won bronze by finishing third in the 2,000-metre steeplechase in a time of seven minutes 4.48 seconds.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 28, 2009 C4

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