CALGARY - The University of Calgary Dinos men's volleyball team defeated the UBC-Okanagan Heat, 3-1 (25-21, 21-25, 25-16, 25-16), to get their first win of the season Saturday night inside the Jack Simpson Gym.

The win puts the Dinos at 1-5 in the season thus far, while the Heat fall to 2-4.

Just like last night, the Dinos got the first kill of the match but then went point for point with the Heat. However, tonight the Dinos stayed composed, made some beautiful kills, and as a result took the first set 25-21. 

Calgary was fully charged up and continued their momentum into the second, getting the first four points in the set. But, UBCO turned up the heat and met the Dinos at the nine point mark and eventually overtook the Dinos and took the second set 25-21. 

The third set saw both teams following the recurring theme of going point for point. Nevertheless, the Dinos would not go down without a fight, pushing through in the last points, highlighted by rookie libero Zack Durrant having two serving aces, to eventually take the set and the 2-1 lead.

In the fourth, the Dinos continued to dominate, making solid blocks to shut down the Heat. The set and match finally concluded with a powerful kill from Louis Kunstmann.

Kunstmann finished with three aces and 10 kills in the match. Zach Evans led Calgary in kills, notching 12, while Liam Kuppe also reached double-digit kills with 10 while also leading the team in digs with six. 

Renn Petryk led the Heat in kills with 11 and Zach van Geel had a team-high six digs for the visitors in the weekend split.

"We needed to get some success," Dinos head coach Rod Durrant said. "The guys showed some character today and came out, stayed with it and played relaxed and free and I think we were able to find a way to be successful today.

"We're big on being a team. We had a lot of guys step up and make some good plays tonight. Our middles are very effective. I thought our serve-receive back court did a really good job of passing, which allowed our setters to run an offence. We hit 37-percent against a pretty good defending team, which really plays with the team effort today."

The Dinos will hit the road next week heading to Edmonton to take on the MacEwan Griffins with the first serve at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The Heat will travel to Kelowna on Friday to take on the Thompson Rivers WolfPack with the match starting at 7 p.m.

-UC-