Surinx best of the best Bison repeats as U Sports top women’s volleyball player By: Joshua Frey-Sam Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2025 Last Modified: 12:49 AM CDT Thursday, Mar. 13, 2025 Updates

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Raya Surinx was already a star. Now, she’s elevating to heights few have reached on a Canadian university volleyball court.

The 20-year-old joined an exclusive group of collegiate athletes on Wednesday when she was named the Mary Lyons Award winner, presented annually to the best player in U Sports women’s volleyball, for the second season in a row.

A consecutive honour has been accomplished just eight times in the award’s 44-year history, and not since University of Montreal outside hitter Laetitia Tchoualack did it 2007-09.

The honour represents of how Surinx has evolved on the court for the Manitoba Bisons.

“It’s been amazing just to see how much she’s grown over the past couple years,” said teammate Ella Gray.

“She’s never there yet, I think is her attitude and way about it. She’s always seeking to improve, and so I think that’s been something that’s amazing to see. She keeps improving tremendously, and just keeps dominating the court in and out of practice, in and out of games.”

Surinx had an unusual start to the year as she missed most of pre-season and the first two matches of the regular season after head coach Ken Bentley and assistant coach Michelle Sawatzky-Koop urged her to step away from the court to recharge.

Surinx had endured another loaded summer that required her move to Richmond, B.C., to train and compete with Volleyball Canada’s NextGen national team. She faced a similar workload in the summer of 2022 and 2023, and after a two-plus-year stretch of non-stop volleyball, it was evident that her tank was empty.

Upon returning, Surinx picked up where she left off, leading the nation in total kills (310) and kills per set (4.84), while finishing third among all players in service aces per set (.67).

“She’s just played more confident and assured volleyball this year,” said Bentley. “In her third year, there’s a bit more method to her madness. She’s a smarter player now, she knows the game better, she’s just playing at a more comfortable level of maturity.

“It’s been a nice progression to see her develop that way, and for her to come back and end up leading this conference in the stats that she did, despite missing the first two matches, is pretty impressive.”

Sawatzky-Koop is one of few people who can relate to Surinx, being the fourth player to receive national Player of the Year honours in consecutive years (1990-92). Sawatzky Koop, who credited the left side for maturing as a passer and a defender, said it’s been Surinx’s growth as a calculated attacker that has impressed her the most in Year 3.

“You don’t really think of that award when you go into your year, and Raya is the kind of young lady who doesn’t either,” said Sawatzky-Koop. “You would think with her God-given talent that she could just show up — and she probably almost could — but that is why she is so exceptional, because she’s incredibly gifted and yet she works hard, she’s super motivated, she’s humble, she’s always gracious — she often looks blissfully naïve about how good she actually is.”

Surinx was the face of Bisons volleyball before she set foot on the Fort Garry campus in 2022. A national Rookie of the Year nod in 2023 proved the future was bright, while her first Player of the Year award further illustrated her supreme talent. This year’s honour is a sign of just how far she’s come.

“I think the last two years have been full of growth in every aspect of the game. Physically, thinking about how I can become more adaptable as a player. Mentally, making sure I’m in every play and investing in every point,” said Surinx, who agreed that her attacked has improved this season.

“Going into this year, I wanted to focus on being more consistent and trying out different shots and new angles. In my first two years, I was hitting a lot of balls six, through the seam, which would work sometimes but it also ended up giving me a lot of errors. So this year I really tried to focus on trying new shots and working off the hands inside and outside, and I think I was successful with that a bit.”

While the recognition was nice for one night, Surinx is mostly pleased she’s at full strength for Bisons’ most important stretch of the season at the U Sports national championship, hosted at the Investors Group Athletic Centre this weekend.

Surinx played on an injured ankle as Manitoba settled for bronze at last year’s event.

“I’m so excited to actually be fully capable this year,” said Surinx. “Last year, it was so tough. After the Canada West final, I was feeling it a little bit, but I was like, ‘No, it’ll probably be fine for nationals,’ and it obviously was not fine. But I’m so excited to get a chance to play these teams at a fully healthy rate, and one last hurrah with these girls so we can give it all we’ve got.”

Manitoba will open against the St. Mary’s Huskies in Friday’s quarterfinal at 6 p.m.

The Bisons are coming off a bronze medal in the Canada West championship, having failed to repeat their conference title run from a year ago. Bentley said his team has the same swagger it always has, however.

Meanwhile, players are making the most out of the opportunity to play in front of a home crowd.

“Obviously, we all have set very high expectations of ourselves because we know how talented we are as a team. It’s almost like fuel to our fire,” said Gray.

“I think we’ve definitely taken it as a challenge, and we know what we’re capable of. We’ve kind of used it as more of a way to learn and grow going into nationals, because I still think that our team has such a high ceiling. We still have the capacity to learn and grow and push each other.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca