CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos opened the 2010-11 Canada West volleyball season with an impressive outing Friday night, making relatively short work of the Winnipeg Wesmen with a 3-1 victory (25-16, 23-25, 25-14, 25-17) Friday night in the Jack Simpson Gym.

BOX SCORE

Led by a 17-kill performance by CIS championship MVP Graham Vigrass, the defending national champion Dinos dominated the three sets they won while coming out on the short end of an error-filled second set. The Dinos improve to 1-0 on the young season, while Winnipeg falls to 0-2.

Notwithstanding the lapse in the second set, Calgary head coach Rod Durrant was pleased with his team's effort to open conference play.

“We did some good things. Our first ball contact was good, which allowed us to stay in-system, and that set up our outside hitters with a lot of one-on-ones,” he said. “I thought we defended pretty well and put some pressure on them. Allen Meek and Graham played very well tonight.”

Meek contributed everywhere on the floor for the Dinos, connecting on 12 kills while sharing the team lead with nine digs.

The first set was the mold for the final two for Calgary, with the home side opening up a big early lead and cruising to a comfortable victory. Calgary hit an astounding 58.6 percent in the opening set, with just one error against 18 kills.

Both teams will likely want to forget the second set, combining for 21 kills and 19 errors. Despite hitting at a zero efficiency, the Wesmen managed to emerge with a 1-1 tie in the match.

“That was just a lack of focus on our part,” Durrant said of the second set. “We made way too many mistakes, and we need to fix that. We addressed it at the end of the match, we cannot afford to make those types of mistakes in the future. There are good teams in this league, and they'll make you pay for it. That said, we did respond in the third and fourth the way we wanted to.”

Calgary opened up a big 12-3 lead early in the third en route to the easy win, then built up an 8-2 advantage in the fourth in a repeat performance to claim the match.

The Wesmen were led by Matthew Dueck's 10 kills, although he also put up 12 errors to mitigate that stat line. Marc Ross and Devin Schmidt added nine kills apiece, with Schmidt connecting well from the middle when given the opportunity.

The trio of Vigrass, Meek, and Curtis James, however, were virtually unstoppable for the Dinos with James matching Meek's dozen kills.

The two teams close out their weekend series Saturday night in The Jack, with first serve slated for 8 p.m. Before the match, the Dinos will raise their 2010 CIS championship banner to the rafters.

-UC-