KELOWNA, B.C. – The UBCO Heat men's volleyball team had their season come to a close in Game 3 of the Canada West quarter-finals on Sunday night at the UBCO Gymnasium as they fell in four sets (21-25, 24-26, 25-23, 18-25) to the Manitoba Bisons.
In another tightly-contested match between the Heat and Bisons, the turning point in the game and the series was a 6-0 run Manitoba put together trailing 24-20 in the second set. That would give the visitors a two-sets-to-none lead and they would go on to close out the series two sets later to advance to the Canada West Final Four.
For the Heat, Australian transfer
Xander van Driel recorded a game-high 17 kills and finished with 18.5 points.
Thys Weststrate added 14 kills, four blocks and an ace for 17.5 points. In his final game with the Heat, UBCO all-time assists leader
Zach van Geel posted 43 assists.
"I mean, he's the best setter in the history of the program in my opinion," commented Heat head coach
Scott Koskie after the match. "He's a phenomenal player. He's a phenomenal teammate. He's a phenomenal leader. He's got a bright future ahead of him and he's going to play more volleyball. It's too bad that I don't get to coach him a little more."
Owen Weekes was once again the focal point of the Manitoba offence as he finished with 14 kills, five aces and five blocks for a game-high 22 points. However, the Bisons offence was much more balanced on the night as three of his teammates also hit double-figures for kills. Sammy Ludwig effectively ran the offence, finishing with 48 assists.
With all to play for in this do-or-die game three, the Bisons came out as the steadier team in front of another hostile crowd of 1317 spectators, the highest total of the series. After exchanging the first 12 points, Manitoba started to pull away slowly but surely as they ran through their middles Heppner and Dueck. The pair combined for nine kills in the opening frame, led by Dueck's six, as the Bisons combined to hit 0.378 to take the opening frame 25-21.
The second set saw some wild swings of momentum back and forth between the two teams. After a call went against the Heat at 10-10, a quick run by Manitoba gave them a 14-11 lead.
Koskie used his first timeout and it swung the momentum back in favour of UBCO who ran through Weststrate to build a 21-18 advantage.
The Heat would push the match to 24-20 but the Bisons upped their defensive intensity, keeping multiple balls alive and eventually erasing a deficit after a Dueck ace. Manitoba would then force back-to-back errors by the Heat to stun the home crowd and take a 2-0 lead with a 26-24 second set win.
With their backs against the wall to start the third, the Heat took advantage of a nervous Bisons team who committed four attack errors in the first 12 points as UBCO stormed to an 8-4 lead. UBCO would continue to push on offence and scramble on defence, highlighted by a big point at 19-14 that resulted in van Driel's 14th kill of the match to go up six. However, Manitoba would claw their way back to 24-23 but a Weeks service error extend the match with UBCO claiming a 25-23 set win.
"It would have been easy in that moment with all the emotions of everything to kind of take a knee, but we showed who we were all year long," said Koskie on his team's resilience to extend the match. "We stepped forward and we gave everything we had, and I'm super proud of that set."
However, the Bisons would not be denied in the fourth. Led by Weekes and a tenacious defence, the Bisons pulled away from the Heat early. Weekes would finish the set with five kills as Manitoba hit 0.424 in the frame to earn the series win with a 25-18 set victory.
The loss ends a remarkable season for the Heat who recorded a program-record 15 wins, and added multiple program firsts, including earning multiple conference all-stars as well as competing in the Canada West Quarter-finals. Because of that, Koskie sees a bright future for UBCO moving forward.
"I think we put a lot of the foundational pieces in place for the program, for us, and hopefully we've made volleyball a bit of an event here. I think those are maybe the biggest takeaways. I feel like between the university, the team, the community, we've done some really amazing things here, not just our team but everybody around the team. I think that's the biggest takeaway that we're building something bigger than the sport, building something that people want to come out and be a part of."
