Wesmen hoping Classic sparks momentum

Grace Vallis wants to flip the script before the calendar flips to a new year.

It’s been tough sledding for the Winnipeg Wesmen women’s volleyball team, which owns a 2-8 record in Canada West conference play at the winter break.

It’s not the step that the program was looking to take following last season, when it reached the playoffs after sweeping the Calgary Dinos in a best-of-three play-in series.

The only team to post a worse record in the first 10 matches were the 1-9 Brandon Bobcats.

“It’s frustration because I know the potential of our group, and I know that we have such a high ceiling and, it’s just like, ‘OK, I’m ready to get there now,’” said Vallis, a third-year middle.

The Wesmen will have a rare opportunity to build some much-needed momentum during the holiday intermission as hosts of this year’s Wesmen Classic. It’s only the second time that the women’s volleyball program will have played in the tournament’s 58-year history.

“I’m very excited, especially the more you get closer to it. Just the anticipation of being able to not only stay home over the holidays and whatnot, but just to be able to play in front of friends and family during this season is really, really fun,” Vallis said.

The Wesmen are one of eight teams in the tournament, held at the Duckworth Centre from Dec. 28-30, including Manitoba, Brandon, Canadian Mennonite University, Ottawa, Acadia, Lakehead and MacEwan.

The hosts will open play against CMU on Dec. 28 at noon. The Wesmen will only play their cross-town rival Bisons if the sides meet in the championship final.

Women’s volleyball is one-for-one in its home tournament, as the program’s only other appearance in 2019 ended with the Wesmen winning it all. That triumph stands as the last time a U of W program won the Wesmen Classic, and the only time since the men’s basketball team won in 2006.

“We’re not going to talk too much about winning the tournament, we’re just going to talk about playing as well as we can, and learning, and using it as a good experience,” said head coach Phil Hudson, who rostered a more veteran squad six years ago.

“It was a confidence builder,” Hudson said of 2019. “It’s a different team, though. It’s a different situation. And we played actually quite well the first half of our season, we just lost a few really close matches to some of the top teams — UBC and Trinity (Western).”

The Wesmen gave nationally ranked No. 3 UBC all it could handle in a pair of competitive losses (2-3; 1-3) in the last weekend of Canada West play before the break. Vallis felt it was the best her group had played all year, and while their effort did not yield a victory, it’s certainly something to build on.

“Losing isn’t fun,” Vallis said. “We have a good group that is like, ‘Something needs to change, how are we going to change it?’ We were all really motivated to find a way to make it work and, when we did that, we had those really good games against UBC, so I think we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing in the second half and hoping that it kind of clicks, now that we have some time to put that practice into play.”

Indeed, there are no hanging heads, and the collective belief remains as high as before.

Hudson noted that the Wesmen are still a young team, with its entire starting lineup only in its third year — beyond fifth-year libero Taylor Cangemi — and with three players that are first-time starters. It’s been a season chock-full of lessons, and the Wesmen Classic is the latest learning opportunity.

“It’s a pretty important growing season for us as far as getting experience and learning what it takes to win in Canada West. I haven’t been disappointed in how we’ve played,” Hudson said.

“We still hope to make the playoffs. We have five weekends, and we need to win more than half of our remaining matches to have a chance to make playoffs, and we think we can do that.”

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