Bison women have their eyes on the prize

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This article was published 11/10/2022 (1113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Katreena Bentley has a clear picture of what winning a U Sports volleyball championship looks like.

In 2014, she was a 13-year-old watching the University of Manitoba women, coached by her dad Ken and led by a player she idolized, setter Brittany Habing, storm to a national title by sweeping UBC in the final.

The Bisons were organized and athletic, a consummate team.

Bentley, now 21 and a member of the Bisons herself, sees something in her current team that reminds her of a glorious past.

Her dad is still the coach and the Bisons have gone 12-1 during a heavy pre-season schedule, perhaps hinting of bigger things to come when they open the Canada West regular season Oct. 21 against the defending national champion Trinity Western Spartans in Langley, B.C.

The top three teams in the conference will advance to the U Sports national tournament in Vancouver next spring.

“I think that’s what makes this team so special is having seen that team do what they did,” said Katreena Bentley Tuesday after the Bisons returned from a 3-1 weekend road trip to Quebec. “Now I can recognize those qualities in this team. The fact that they showed up every day and worked toward their goals and never lost sight of wanting the national championship and I think this group comes to practice every single day thinking that’s what we want to do. We want to be in the national final.”

Manitoba’s youthful roster and size (10 players are 5-11 or taller) should challenge these ambitions but a talented group is poised to help Manitoba improve on a 6-10 regular-season record and a first-round playoff exit in 2021-22.

Rookie left side Raya Surinx joins veteran middles Brenna Bedosky, Chloe Ellerbrook and Eve Catojo as regulars in the starting lineup. Other prime-time players include left sides Ella Gray, Andi Almonte and Light Uchechukwu, libero Julia Arnold and Bentley, a second-year setter.

Almonte, a 5-7 second-year player from Oak Park High School, is a rising star at a position normally dominated by women four and five inches taller.

“Andi plays a lot bigger than she is and she’s just someone that knows the game so you can have no problem trusting her and knowing that she’s going to be there and she knows what she’s doing,” said Katreena Bentley. “She’s smart, intelligent and her volleyball IQ is through the roof.”

Uchechukwu, a 21-year-old Winnipegger who spent the summer playing with Canada’s NextGen national team, said Almonte is the real deal.

“She’s technically great, very athletic and smart,” said Uchechukwu. “And even though she might be shorter, she still knows how to work a block and where to swing and also she gets up there and she can swing hard.”

Almonte, who missed her entire Grade 12 year of volleyball due to the pandemic, has laboured hard to make up for lost time.

“I have to be smarter at the game and I have to just be overall better at every other skill besides hitting and blocking,” she said. “So that’s why I take pride in my defence and my passing, especially, because that’s where I get to perform better.”

Added Ken Bentley: “She just punches way above her weight class and she’s just such a good volleyball player — I don’t know how else to explain it.

“Her volleyball IQ is so good and she is just so competitive. She can just do so many things; it’s just hard to keep her off the floor.”

While Ken Bentley took the unprecedented step of running off-season training sessions in July and August to make up for lost time during the pandemic, Almonte, Catojo, Surinx and rookie setter Kendra Andjelic had a built-in competitive edge as starters on Manitoba’s gold-medal-winning effort at the Canada Summer Games.

Uchechukwu said there’s nothing outrageous about her club’s championship aspirations.

“I think we definitely have the talent on the team and the work ethic and we’ve everyone’s put in so much work this past year, I think we definitely have a shot,” she said.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14