CALGARY – It took four grueling sets, but the No. 3 University of Calgary Dinos finished off a sweep of the UBC Thunderbirds in their Canada West quarterfinal series with a 3-1 win Friday afternoon in the Jack Simpson Gym (25-19, 25-17, 29-31, 26-24).

BOX SCORE

Led by a sparkling 17-kill from Allen Meek, the defending CIS champion Dinos booked their ticket to the Canada West Final Four next weekend in Edmonton, where they will join the host Golden Bears. The victory also sends the Dinos through to their second straight CIS championship tournament thanks to Trinity Western's 3-0 victory over Thompson Rivers. All four teams at next week's Final Four will head to Langley, B.C. March 4-6 for a chance at national glory.

After taking a straight-sets victory Thursday night, the Dinos seemed poised to repeat the feat Friday after taking a quick 2-0 lead. But the T-Birds were unwilling to let their season die that quickly and pushed the Dinos to the limit, coming that close from forcing a fifth set.

Calgary was very efficient in the hitting department, nailing 44 and 46 percent of their opportunities in the opening two sets, more than double the percentage of UBC. Getting his second straight start, Levi Nutma was good early on, hitting on four of his six attempts to go along with four digs.

UBC missed key serves at inopportune times both in the first and second sets. Forcing their coach into a timeout with a missed serve at 21-16 was Cary Brett, while a Ben Chow miss at 23-18 was a back-breaker to any potential Birds comeback. The Birds also snuffed out any momentum they created with side-out opportunities in the middle set, missing two markers while down 10-18 and 13-19.

After the two relatively dominant first couple of sets, Calgary had all sorts of trouble with UBC in the third game, spotting their counterparts an 8-3 early lead and a late advantage at 18-14. A Durrant timeout call proved beneficial at that point, as Calgary went on a four point run to tie it at 18 on a Curtis James service ace.

An Andrew Visser receiving error forced Dinos coach Rod Durrant into another timeout call down 19-21, and once again the strategy worked, as Calgary took the lead at 22-21 on three consecutive Birds hitting errors. However the Birds wouldn't quit, outlasting several serving errors in the late going to push Calgary all the way into the thirties, where they took the set 31-29 on two consecutive Joe Cordonier kills.

After missing out on five match point opportunities in the third set, it took the Dinos four more in the fourth to finally put away the Thunderbirds 26-24 after taking a 24-21 lead. A block by James and David Egan finally ended things in the Dinos' favour.

Meek's 17 kills paced the Dinos, while Graham Vigrass added 12 and Nutma chipped in 10. Setter Jay Blankenau had a match-high 13 digs for the Calgary Dinos, two better than UBC's Blair Bann. Robert Bennett led the way for UBC with 16 kills, while Cordonier added 11 and Ben Chow 10.

It was the final match in the careers of two Thunderbirds as setter Ryan Zwarich and libero Bann wrapped up their five-year careers with UBC.

While UBC heads into the off-season, the Dinos will be the second seed at the conference Final Four next weekend in Edmonton.

-UC-