CALGARY – With conference all-stars Ciaran McGovern and Omar Langford sitting on the bench, the third-ranked University of Calgary Dinos didn't skip a beat as they rolled to a 3-0 victory (25-22, 25-17, 25-21) over the No. 6 Manitoba Bisons Friday night in the Jack Simpson Gym.

BOX SCORE

Graham Vigrass led the way from the right side with 15 kills as the Dinos came off their bye week firing, improving to 2-1 on the season while handing the Bisons (3-2) their second loss of the campaign.

“We're really pleased with the way the guys played tonight,” said Dinos head coach Rod Durrant. “We took advantage with our serve, we were able to establish our block, and then we were able to play some good defence around that block. We had some good performances; Oleg (Podporin) did a great job out of the middle for us tonight, and Jay (Blankenau) did a good job setting.”

Calgary trailed just once in the entire match – at 2-1 in the opening set – and hit better than 35 per cent as a team in the victory.

“Manitoba is a good blocking team and for us to hit 35 per cent is something we're pretty pleased with,” said Durrant.

The first set was easily the tightest of the three, with the largest advantage by either side just four points at 18-14 Calgary. The Bisons quickly took that advantage away, however, with a 4-0 run to even the score at 18-18. With the score tied 20-20, a ball handling call against Steve Goertzen and a kill by David Egan gave Calgary a two-point advantage, and a pair of Manitoba errors iced the opening set for the Dinos at 25-22.

The Dinos opened up a quick six-point lead in the second set and rode that all the way to their eight-point win at 25-17 by outhitting the Bisons 33 per cent to 15 per cent. The third followed a similar script, but for a four-point rally by Manitoba late that made the score much closer than it had been. Calgary still moved to a comfortable 25-21 win in the final frame.

Vigrass' 15-kill night was matched on the other side of the net by Dane Pischke, but no other Bison player had more than six kills as Manitoba put down just 34 as a team compared to Calgary's 42. CIS all-rookie team member Chris Hoag added 10 kills for the Dinos, while Podporin had four kills on seven attempts to go with five significant blocks.

Calgary out-blocked the Bisons by a 9.5-5.5 margin on the night.

John Galloway had six kills while Goertzen added five in a losing cause for Manitoba.

The two teams square off one more time Saturday night in the Jack Simpson Gym, with first serve slated for 8 p.m. MT.

-UC-