February 25 - The #4 ranked University of Manitoba Bisons is the Canada West Men’s volleyball bronze medallist, after a straight sets victory over the #3 ranked University of Saskatchewan Huskies, Saturday night in the University of Alberta’s Main Gym, site of the 2006 Canada West Final Four.

Manitoba rebounded after a straight sets loss of their own, in their semi-final match against the host Golden Bears, to win 29-27, 25-15 and 25-15, taking the bronze and entering the CIS Championship as the third seed coming out of the west.

The 2006 CIS Men’s volleyball Championship goes March 3-5 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. All four teams in the Canada West Final Four have already advanced.

Alberta and the Trinity Western University Spartans play for Canada West gold at 8:30 PM MST.

Bison’s head coach Garth Pischke was pleased with his team’s effort this weekend and the bronze medal that became of it.

“It was a great for us; I thought we had a couple of good matches this weekend and I’m quite pleased with results.”

Saskatchewan, dogged by injuries to their key players, made a game of it in the opening set. Playing with an injured Canada West Player of the Year in Mark Dodds and missing Darren Dove (Team Canada) and Kris Brand (FISU Team Canada), both out with injuries, the Huskies got strong play from fifth year veteran Brandon Needham, who was the lone bright spot in the Saskatchewan attack. With a 37% attack rate, and committing just four attack errors, Saskatchewan was able to keep pace with the Manitoba attack, breaking several serves, getting key blocks and taking advantage of the Bison’s seven attack errors to force extra points. After Pischke called time-out, his troops came back to the floor and took the next three points to snag the win at 29-27.

The Manitoba middle became too much for the Huskie blockers and attackers to handle, as the Bisons rolled up big numbers in sets two and three.

Working with kill percentages of 77% in set two and 65% in the final set, Manitoba was easily able to take the match from the depleted Huskies. Three Bisons finished with above 70% attack rates as Jeff Zylstra (89%); Nathan Toews (78%) and Toon van Lankvelt (75%) powered the attack.

Setter Drew Venables, named player of the game for Manitoba, dished up 38 assists in total and three times on four attempts found holes in the Saskatchewan defence for tips at the net.

Joel Ens managed eight kills for the Huskies, while Dodds and Hart Spencer chipped in with six each. Brandon Needham was the most efficient Huskie, getting four of six kill attempts to count, he also added an ace and four block assists.

Pischke is glad to see his team peaking at the right time.

“I feel really good heading into Nationals right now, we were very banged up in the beginning of January and we’re very fortunate to have an easy schedule in the early going and that got us healthy again. We played a great team last weekend (UBC) and I thought we played really well this weekend as well.”

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