Wesmen stocking up on talent

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This article was published 06/08/2020 (1881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Phil Hudson is bringing in quite the recruiting class for the University of Winnipeg Wesmen women’s volleyball team, but when he’ll get to see them on the court remains a mystery.

The latest addition was announced on Wednesday as the U of W signed 5-10 transfer setter Portia Switzer from White City, Sask. The 20-year-old spent the past two years playing college volleyball at Vancouver Island University, where she won two Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association national titles.

Switzer joins a Wesmen recruitment class that features talent such as the top-ranked high school seniors in the province in Dakota Collegiate’s left side attacker Jaya Dzikowicz and middle blocker Taylor McGillivray, left side Alysha Goundrey of Surrey, B.C., and a pair of liberos in Sturgeon Heights product Nya Krauchi and Taylor Cangemi of Calgary.

While players like Switzer plan to move to Winnipeg in September, there’s still no time frame as to when the school will open the doors to the Duckworth Centre for the team to begin training even though Volleyball Manitoba’s return-to-play plan has advanced to its second stage and now allows indoor training in small groups.

Canada West announced its plan for volleyball in May, which has local teams the Wesmen and the University of Manitoba Bisons playing a total of 20 games in a Saskatchewan-Manitoba division with the Brandon Bobcats, Saskatchewan Huskies and Regina Cougars (only in women’s volleyball as Regina cut their men’s program in 2018).

The modified season wouldn’t start until January at the earliest.

“Yeah, it’ll be interesting. It’ll be a long few months,” Switzer said in a phone interview.

“We were talking as a team and Phil was saying it’s going to be rough. If we can practise, we won’t be practising every single day, that’s a lot, and it’s still seven months until we get to possibly play. You’ll definitely have to work on the self-discipline and just keep pushing towards the end goal so you don’t get tired of just not playing or looking forward to anything.”

The coming months will be an adjustment for the 64-year-old Hudson — who impressed as the interim head coach last season and was officially given the job in March — as he said the last time he went September-December without any competitive volleyball was probably when he was 12 years old. The longtime Dakota Collegiate varsity boys coach, along with everyone else, will find out by Oct. 8 whether the conference will proceed with the shortened season or cancel it.

“I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but I’m hopeful that they’re gonna see fit that we’re going to train towards a startup in the first week of January. They’ve done a lot of positive things like keeping it into areas, like Saskatchewan-Manitoba is an area, Alberta is an area and B.C. is an area, to decrease the amount of travel with no travel by air and just a little bit of travel by bus,” Hudson said.

“They’ve put a lot of positive things in place to make sure we have a chance. That’s the proposal and I hope it goes through. If it goes through, we’ll train like crazy and do the best we can. If not, we’ll adapt and we’ll try to make the year as productive as possible for the kids.”

Switzer can thank her mom Connie for getting the attention of the U of W. Earlier this year, Hudson was speaking at a coaching clinic in Saskatoon, Sask., and Connie was there taking notes. Connie later approached Hudson about giving Switzer a shot on the team, which led to the player and coach FaceTiming, where they determined it would be a good fit. Switzer, who has three years of eligibility left, was hoping to play at the U Sports level right out of high school but it didn’t work out. She’s thrilled to now get that chance, although it’s not exactly going to be how she envisioned it.

“I have friends and old teammates playing at almost every school we play in Canada West. It’s a little bit disappointing to not be able to see and compete against them,” Switzer said.

“I think it’ll definitely be interesting for sure. In college, you play the teams in your province, so it’ll kind of be the same as that… But yeah, it’s kind of disappointing that you won’t be able to travel to far distances with your teammates and have those experiences as much. But I think it’ll be good and we can learn a lot by playing the same teams over and over again, which I guess we’ll have to as that’ll be the situation.”

Not that there’s ever an ideal time for a pandemic, but it’s tough timing for a Wesmen side that was starting to see some major progress with Hudson taking over. Last season, the squad qualified for the Canada West playoffs for the first time since 2011-12.

But regardless of what this year looks like, Hudson isn’t worried about losing momentum.

“I think once we have the opportunity to get into the gym, with the way we train, the type of athletes we have, the leadership we have with our older kids, that competitiveness and drive for personal excellence will come back pretty quickly,” said Hudson.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31