CALGARY – The Winnipeg Wesmen forced a third and deciding match in their best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal series with the Calgary Dinos Saturday night, holding on for a 3-2 five-set victory (25-22, 23-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-10).
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The deciding match of the series will go at 3 p.m. on Sunday in the Jack Simpson Gym, with the winner advancing to the Canada West Final Four and the CIS Championships, both of which will be held in Edmonton over the next two weekends.
The Dinos simply had no answer for Justin Duff and Daniel Andres, the two Winnipeg middles who pounded 13 and nine kills, respectively. Both finished with better than 50 per cent hitting averages, and both were key parts of the Winnipeg block that held Calgary at bay for much of the night, extending the Wesmen season by at least one more day.
“Give them credit, their middles were very good tonight and we need to do a little bit of adjustment on that to slow them down,” said Dinos head coach Rod Durrant, who will aim to get his team back to the national championship for the first time since 2003 with a win Sunday. “We knew that it was going to be a tough battle and they're a very good team, and that's why we're going three tomorrow.”
By contrast, the three Calgary middles – Oleg Podporin, Graham Vigrass, and David Egan – managed just seven kills between them on the night, a far cry from the 15 Podporin and Vigrass posted in the series opener on Friday.
The Wesmen made Calgary earn every point on the night, which ended the way it started for the Dinos with trouble from the serving line. In a 25-22 first set loss, Calgary committed no fewer than seven service errors, easily the difference in a set where the teams were very even statistically. Though they managed to get it together with just five errors in the following three sets combined, Allen Meek's serve sailed into the net on match point number two to give the Wesmen the 3-2 win.
“We got the momentum in the fourth set where we played pretty solid to force it to the fifth,” said Durrant. “A couple guys came off the bench and gave us a little bit of a different look and that helped us, but at the end of the day in the fifth set they pretty much had their way in the middle and we need to adjust to that tomorrow.”
The fifth set was indeed all Winnipeg as they jumped out to an 8-4 lead as the teams switched sides. Four of the Wesmen's 13 blocks came in the fifth set, and the visitors held a significant 58.3 to 5.9 per cent advantage in the hitting percentage department.
Left side Andrew Town had 19 kills for Winnipeg on the night, with Paul Kjos matching Duff's 13. Alan Ahow also broke double digits with 10 kills while leading his team with a match-high 13 digs.
Andrew Tallas shone in a losing cause for Calgary with a 21-kill performance, while Chris Hoag and Omar Langford added 11 each. Winnipeg out-killed the Dinos 67-63, but it was attack errors that stung Calgary with their 30 against just 17 for the Wesmen.
With a one-match winner-take-all showdown set for Sunday afternoon, Durrant and the Dinos will have to quickly regroup after their first home loss of the season.
“If it's going to happen, it's got to happen on our court, and we played all year to have this game right here,” the third-year coach said. “We're happy to be at home and we'll be ready tomorrow.”
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