CALGARY – The road from Calgary to Fredericton goes through Edmonton – at least this week.
After dispatching the Regina Cougars in their quarterfinal series, the University of Calgary Dinos women's volleyball squad takes the short trip up the QEII this weekend for the Canada West Final Four, from which three teams will advance to the CIS Championship at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. The high-pressure weekend with everything at stake opens Thursday night with the two conference semi-finals, followed by the bronze and gold medal matches Saturday afternoon at the University of Alberta's Main Gym.
The No. 3 Dinos are joined at the Final Four by the No. 2 Alberta Pandas, the No. 4 Trinity Western Spartans, and the No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds. One of these teams will not advance to the national championship – further evidence that it is usually more difficult to get out of Canada West in volleyball than it is to win the national title.
The semi-final match-ups are both intriguing and rife with storylines as Calgary takes on UBC while Alberta faces off with Trinity Western. The Alberta Pandas lost just four matches all season, finishing with the same 16-4 record as the Dinos, and three of those losses came at home. One was to Calgary in late November, while the other two took place mid-January as the TWU Spartans swept Alberta on their own floor with a pair of 3-1 victories.
The Spartans have qualified for two CIS tournaments in their relatively short history, both of which were held in Calgary in 2006 and 2007. After missing out on nationals last year, Trinity Western has put together a solid team led by fifth year middle Dayna Jansen Van Doorn, a veteran of the national team. They match up well against the Pandas, who feature two first-team conference all-stars in power hitter Jocelyn Blair and setter Daryll Roper, and the first semi-final will be a tight battle. Alberta had a bye to end the season, then another to open the playoffs as Final Four host, so the Pandas have not played a match in 19 days.
Canada West Player of the Year Holly Harper leads the Calgary Dinos into their semi-final match-up against UBC, which only seems fitting given the number of important matches these two teams have played in recent years. It's a rematch of last year's conference semi-final at Manitoba, where the Dinos took a wild five-set win with a 21-19 victory in the fifth set after being down two sets to none.
In fact, this marks the fifth consecutive season that the Dinos and Thunderbirds have met up in the post-season. UBC drew first blood with national semi-final wins in 2005 and 2006, while the Dinos returned the favour in 2007 by knocking the 'Birds out of the playoffs in a best-of-three quarterfinal series in Calgary.
The T-Birds visited Calgary in early January, both teams' first action after the Christmas break, and the Dinos took both matches by 3-2 and 3-1 scores. Following that setback, UBC embarked on a 10-match win streak, which they bring into the Final Four in Edmonton this week.
Marisa Field, UBC's lone first team all-star, led the conference in blocks and will be pressed into service against the Calgary offence which features not only Harper but second team all-star Lauren Perry on the left side along with Laura Spence in the middle. Spence had a breakout season for the Dinos, recording a career-high 146 kills and leading the team with a .309 hitting percentage, good enough for seventh spot in the conference standings.
The Thunderbirds will be buoyed by the return of second team all-star Liz Cordonier, who missed a substantial portion of the season – including the Calgary series – with an injury. Cordonier was the team leader in kills in last week's quarterfinal win over Brandon, and she will cause problems for the Dinos defensively along with fellow second teamer Jen Hinze.
While the winners of Thursday night's semi-finals qualify for the conference title match, more importantly they get two of the three Canada West berths to Fredericton. The two losing teams enter the repechage, also known as the bronze medal match, which goes at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. The Dinos are aiming to attend their ninth consecutive CIS tournament, the longest current streak in the nation – but they will have their hands full with three other excellent squads who also want to head east next week, not least of which are the defending national champion Thunderbirds.
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