February 4 - The University of Manitoba Bisons mens volleyball team has finished their regular season at their peak. For the second day in a row, the Bisons (10-8) defeated the University of Saskatchewan Huskies (8-10) in three straight sets (25-10, 25-9, 25-21) to close out their ’06-07 season with a bang.

Josh Klassen had 15 kills and three service aces to lead the afternoon. Jeff Zylstra and Matt Blachin came in second and third in the hitting department with eight and six kills, respectively. Klassen and Taylor Hunt led the digs category with five each.

There didn’t appear to be any question what the result would be right from the start of the game, which kicked off with some solid serving from Nathan Towes. The Zoons catapulted out to an 8-4 lead by the first technical timeout and were doubling the Huskies again by the second time out, with much credit going to some Klassen-van Lankvelt-Toews trio work. The two sides combined for eight service errors in the first set alone, but Manitoba’s were not harmful enough to cause any real trouble. The home team had a 15-point jump at the close of the first – which wrapped up excitingly, thanks to a couple monster hits and blocks delivered by van Lankvelt.

The Herd got up right of the top again in the second set, leading this time by six at the first technical. Unbelievable offence and defence from Zylstra, van Lankvelt, Balchin and Klassen got Manitoba ahead by 12 going into the second technical and – after seven straight serves by Toews – Manitoba took the set by a 16-point margin on a bullet kill by Klassen.

Things got close in the third set and the Zoons gave up their highest amount of points on the day – but pulled together to end things in three. Klassen had a hadful of killer swings and again delivered the final point of the game in the 25-21 set.

Manitoba now awaits the close of the Canada-West regular season to find out their playoff forecast.

Complete statistics...