Collegiate court action heats up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/02/2025 (578 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s championship season on the court, and the Manitoba Bisons and Winnipeg Wesmen will be in the thick of the action as the Canada West volleyball and basketball playoffs get underway this week.

The Wesmen men’s and Bison women’s volleyball teams won’t be in action, but for good reason as they have already earned a spot in their respective quarterfinals, which begin next week.

The Wesmen have gone from a nice story to a team with championship aspirations, finishing the regular season 17-3 and ranked No. 2 in the country while overcoming significant changes to the roster and a new head coach. Meanwhile, the No. 2 Bisons are one of the favourites entering the playoffs and once again have their eyes on a national title after going 16-4.

Manitoba will host the national women’s volleyball championship March 14-16 when it will look to build on a bronze medal with many of the same pieces from a year ago.

The focus is on this week, though, which features five teams in action.

Men’s volleyball

It all starts Thursday at 6 p.m. with the eighth-seed Manitoba Bisons hosting a best-of-three play-in series against the ninth-seed Universtiy of British Columbia Okanagan Heat at Investors Group Athletic Centre. The winner will face the Wesmen in the quarterfinals.

The Bisons were in this spot a year ago, winning their play-in and then pushing No. 1 Alberta to three matches in the quarterfinals. They’ve followed that up with an underwhelming 9-11 campaign this season, but still believe they can hang with anyone in the conference.

Manitoba will look to play to its strengths, which is the top service game in the country and a versatile attack.

Karil Dadash Adeh and Jordan Heppner have combined for 94 aces, while the team’s 184 aces (2.49 per set) are the best in the nation by a wide margin.

The Bisons may not have the top-heavy star power that some other programs do but have reached the playoffs by spreading the wealth on offence. Four players — Dadash Adeh, Spencer Grahame, Owen Weekes and Kai Boyko — have registered more than 100 kills this season.

“I think absolute what we have is a benefit,” said setter Sammy Ludwig. “We have so many guys that can kill the ball consistently. It makes it easy on me because I know no matter who I give the ball to, we’re in a good position to score. I can trust everyone on the court.”

“I think it also takes a lot of pressure off each other for them as a group. There’s some teams that have that one guy — this is going to be the guy, every game we need this guy going or we’re not going to have much — and I think for us, that can be anyone of our outsides on any given night.”

Women’s volleyball

The seventh-seed Wesmen won’t be far behind, as they begin a best-of-three play-in series against the 10th-seed Calgary Dinos at Duckworth Centre. The winner will face the second seed Alberta Pandas in the quarterfinals.

The Wesmen lost fourth-year middle Christine Kolbuck and third-year middle Hannah Schrader to knee injuries early in the season and have relied on younger players to step up in their absence.

None more than Brooke Duncalfe, who was named to the Canada West all-rookie team last year and has taken a major step in her second season. The left side leads the team with 195 kills and has shouldered a hefty workload as one of the team’s primary attackers.

“For a second-year athlete, she’s had a great season,” said head coach Phil Hudson. “She’s done really well receiving serves and is one of our top defensive players, and she’s learned to attack the ball in a variety of ways to try and get kills.”

Winnipeg went 10-10 in conference play and enters the playoffs on a four-game winning streak on the strength of a diverse lineup and strong defence. Their 14.47 diggs per set are the third-most in the conference. Where the Wesmen will look for a boost is their efficiency on offence. The team collectively leads the conference with 2,740 attacks but is hitting at a fifth-worst .175 per cent clip.

They face a Calgary team that has been average offensively and defensively. It will be key to limit outside hitter Sophia Hansen, who is averaging 3.26 kills per set.

Women’s basketball

The No. 12 Manitoba Bisons are embracing the role of underdog and will try to play spoiler when they head to the University of Fraser Valley for a neutral site play-in game against No. 5 Calgary on Friday at 4 p.m CT. The loser goes home, while the winner sticks around to face No. 4 Fraser Valley on Saturday

The Bisons backed their way into the playoffs with a 7-13 record but are more than happy to be there with a young team that is searching for valuable experience.

“I think it speaks to the quality of our rookie class. We had a fairly competitive rookie class this year and we graduated two of our best players so you always wonder what that transition is going to be like, so for the most part I’ve been really happy with that,” said head coach Michele Sung.

Sung recognizes her squad is in for a tough matchup against a surging Dinos team averaging the third-most points per contest this season (73.0), but these are games that can benefit the program in the future.

“I think we’re just trying to instil that no fear of failure,” Sung said. “Everyone shows up every day ready to try to win a game, and there’s always a possibility that someone loses a game.”

Men’s basketball

The Winnipeg Wesmen hope this is finally their year.

Winnipeg has reached the Canada West championship only to stumble at the finish line to the Victoria Vikes in each of the last two seasons.

Now they are back as the sixth seed after finishing tied with Manitoba and Calgary atop the Prarie Division at 16-4. The Wesmen will face No. 11 Mount Royal in a play-in at the University of British Columbia on Friday (5:30 p.m. CT), where the winner will stay another night to face the No. 3 UBC Thunderbirds in Saturday’s quarterfinal at 4 p.m. CT.

“It’s definitely in the back of my mind, falling short two years in a row,” said fifth-year guard Shawn Maranan, who leads the team with 14.8 points per game. “It definitely hurts but it’s also a source of motivation this time of year. We know what we have to do, we know how we have to play to get over that hump and, yeah, it definitely lingers in the back of my mind.

“It gets me pumped up whenever I think about it because we have another chance, another opportunity to get another crack at it.”

Winnipeg has continued to win with the same suffocating defence employed by head coach Mike Raimbault, allowing a conference-low 68.7 points per contest. Their focus will be slowing down Cougars guard Keivonte Watts, who is third in the conference with 19.9 points per contest.

Meanwhile, the No. 2 Bisons will have the benefit of rest when they host Saturday’s quarterfinal at 7 p.m. Manitoba will play the winner of Friday’s play-in between No. 10 Alberta and No. 7 Thompson Rivers, which will go at IGAC at 4 p.m.

The Bisons were left stunned a year ago when No. 12 UNBC pulled off an upset in the quarterfinals. Their hopes at a conference championship got even more difficult when all-Canadian forward Simon Hildebrandt left for High Point University, a Division 1 NCAA program in North Carolina, last summer.

Manitoba has maintained its defensive prowess, allowing 70 points per outing (the second-fewest in the conference), while others have stepped up offensively.

Fourth-year guards Mason Kraus (averaging 18.4 points per contest) and Daren Watts (14.6 points) have led the charge while fourth-year forward Cieran O’Hara has become one of the most dominant rebounders in Canada West, averaging 9.6 boards per game.

Two alumni, AJ Basi and Keith Omoerah, visited the team earlier this week. Their message was simple: focus on the present.

“Honestly, I think everyone’s over the fact that we lost, but the issue with it was we were expecting UBC to beat UNBC, and we were looking too far ahead into the future,” O’Hara said of last season. “Let’s just focus on right now, because we do have an opportunity to really do something this year, but we need to just focus on what’s right ahead of us, and that’s either playing Thompson River or Alberta.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca