CALGARY – Omar Langford had 28 kills and Ciaran McGovern distributed 58 assists as the fourth-ranked Calgary Dinos drew first blood in their weekend series with the UBC Thunderbirds by a 3-2 score (27-25, 21-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-9) Saturday afternoon in the Jack Simpson Gym.
BOX SCORE
After back-to-back 27-kill performances at Regina in his last two conference games, Langford opened with a monster 11-kill first set and added four in the fifth as the Dinos maintained their grip on second place in the Canada West standings at 8-3. His 28 kills, a season high in the conference this year, were more than the 27 attempts made by Andrew Tallas – his closest teammate in that regard – and accounted for nearly half the Dinos' offence on the afternoon. That offence was quarterbacked by McGovern, the sophomore setter who sits second in the conference in assists.
“Ciaran was very good, using the guys in the right situations, and Omar obviously had a very good day as well,” said Rod Durrant, in his third season as head coach of the Dinos. “It was a big win for our group of guys. The fourth and fifth sets we really played well as a group and did some good things, and I'm very pleased with how we stayed together as a group.”
“There are no weekends off,” he went on. “UBC is a great team, and they're going to fight to the end, and we saw that today with a five-set match that went two and a half hours.”
What Langford did on one side of the floor, however, was matched virtually point-for-point by UBC's Steve Gotch. Gotch, who played for the Dinos in the 2005-06 season, posted 24 kills, including several from the back row that the Dinos had all kinds of trouble with, and actually had four more attempts than Langford on the afternoon with 58. Between them, Langford and Gotch have the five highest single-match kill totals in Canada West this season.
Just as Langford narrowly won the battle with Gotch, the Dinos narrowly claimed victory in the battle with UBC. Very little separated the teams, which often played side-out volleyball for more than 20 points at a time, but it was the Dinos' composure down two sets to one heading into the fourth that carried them to victory. Without showing any panic, Calgary jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the fourth set and, after UBC tied it at 4-4, the Dinos made it 8-5 and never trailed again, forcing a fifth and deciding set with a 25-22 win.
In the fifth, a kill from Graham Vigrass brought the Dinos on even terms with UBC at 3-3. Chris Hoag stepped back to serve for Calgary, and Gotch committed three straight errors – the final two of which were blocks by Vigrass and McGovern – to give Calgary a 6-3 lead. From there Langford took over, posting three kills and a block as the Dinos cruised to the 15-9 win.
Kyle Dupperon added nine kills behind Gotch for UBC, while Yari Kozel added seven. Dupperon was a blocking force at the net with one solo and six assisted blocks, while Aaron Surkan posted five blocks to go with his six-kill performance.
For Calgary, Tallas pounded 10 kills but added nine errors to go with it, while Vigrass had a solid nine kills and Oleg Podporin seven. McGovern and Vigrass were the Dinos' blocking leaders, while Hoag led all players in the match with his 12 digs.
Calgary out-killed UBC 67-54 and out-dug them 49-31, while the T-Birds held the edge in blocks at 13-10.
The Dinos and Thunderbirds do battle again Sunday afternoon in the Jack Simpson Gym, with first serve slated for 2 p.m. MT.
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