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Laval dashes Bobcats' championship dream

By: Chris Jaster

Sunday, Mar. 3, 2013 at 1:12 AM | Comments: 0

Jeremie Lortie, left, of the Laval Rouge et Or hits through the block of Brandon Bobcats' Brendan White during their CIS men's volleyball semifinal Saturday in Quebec City. (YAN DOUBLET/LAVAL UNIVERSITY)

QUEBEC CITY — The Brandon University Bobcats’ hopes of winning their first Canadian Interuniversity Sport men’s volleyball championship were dashed Saturday night by the host Laval Rouge et Or.

Laval won the final two sets in the national semifinal to defeat Brandon 3-2 (21-25, 26-24, 24-26, 25-23, 15-13), leaving the Bobcats devastated.

"It hurts," said Bobcats head coach Grant Wilson. "We came here to win. We didn’t. I feel like we let a lot of people down back home and we’re sorry. The guys played their hearts out and it just didn’t work out."

The match was close from start to finish, but it was the Bobcats’ serving, which the team prided itself on all season, that let them down in the end.

Brandon, which entered the tournament as the top seed, had 18 serving errors in the contest, including five in the fourth set and four more in the fifth set. Fifth-year setter Garrett Popplestone had six serving errors in the match.

"That was the worst we’ve served in a long time," Wilson said. "We missed a lot of serves today and we didn’t keep them under pressure. That was the difference in the end for sure."

Sam Tuivai led the Bobcats’ attack with 19 kills. Roy Ching chipped in with 17 kills, four blocks and 12 digs, while Popplestone had 49 assists, three kills, three blocks and two aces.

Dan Boutwell had a solid match with 11 kills and seven blocks, but he was left thinking about the final few points — especially his serving error that gave Laval a 14-11 lead in the fifth set — and the pain Popplestone and Scott Neufeld, the Bobcats’ two fifth-year players, were feeling.

"I know they wanted it real bad," he said. "This is their last chance. Everybody wants to make that year special."

Tommy Belisle led Laval’s attack with 17 kills, followed by Jeremie Lortie with 16, Frederic Mondou with 11 and Bruno Lortie with 10. Lortie also had six blocks.

With the win, Laval snapped Canada West’s streak of 18 straight CIS men’s volleyball championships. The Rouge et Or, who will play McMaster in tomorrow’s final at 3:30 p.m., last won the national title in 1994, the year before Canada West started its reign. McMaster has never the title.

Meanwhile, the Bobcats will play for a bronze medal against the Western Mustangs Sunday at noon (WCG-TV, cis-sic.tv). Brandon medalled in both of its other national appearances — winning silver two years ago and bronze four years ago — and the team wants to keep that streak alive.

"That’s certainly my focus and the team’s focus from now on," said Boutwell.

"The only thing worse than playing in the bronze-medal game is losing it," added Wilson. "We need to find a way to regroup and come back and put up a fight tomorrow because we’re playing an extremely good team in Western. They showed what they could do against Trinity (Western) in the first game of the tournament, so it’s going to be tough."

CAT SCRAPS: The bronze-medal match will also be shown live at BU’s Healthy Living Centre … McMaster defeated Western 3-0 (25-23, 27-25, 25-21) in the other semifinal … Alberta and Trinity Western will play in the fifth-place match Sunday at 10 a.m. The Golden Bears swept the Montreal Carabins in their consolation semifinal on Saturday, while the Spartans needed five sets to get past the UNB Varsity Reds.

» cjaster@brandonsun.com

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