Two more home matches for Metcalf

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This article was published 17/02/2023 (1186 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Look around the Healthy Living Centre this weekend and you’ll likely see a few “Jacquie’s Crew” shirts.

They represent the beautiful blend and symbiotic support of two families that converged eight years ago. They share this gym just two more times, for Rylan Metcalf’s final home weekend of Canada West men’s volleyball against the Trinity Western Spartans (17-5), starting today at 7:45 p.m.

“It’s absolutely crazy to think about,” Metcalf said. “I remember my first league game here, it was insane. Coming from Regina, you didn’t get much of a crowd and then you come here and the crowd’s awesome.

“Playing in this gym, it’s been like home for the last five or six years. It’s just tremendous. It’s a part of me.”

The Brandon University Bobcats (12-10) and the Metcalfs connected when Rylan’s older brother, Mason, signed as a raw rookie in 2015. Rylan transferred from the University of Regina in 2018 when its men’s volleyball team folded following his rookie year.

Mason graduated in 2020 as the program’s all-time leading blocker, and then Rylan carved out a starting role he was anything but promised a few years later.

That path was filled with obstacles, none bigger than when his mother, Jacquie, was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. Jacquie and her husband, Marlin, are bona fide Bobcat superfans. They not only drive two hours from Carman for as many home games as possible but travel for road trips as well. They’ve attended every match in both Mason and Rylan’s final seasons and only missed a few matches in 2021-22 due to Jacquie’s treatments and health.

BU showed its support when both Bobcats volleyball teams — along with the Manitoba Bisons men — swapped their regular warmup shirts for “Jacquie’s Crew” tees with “She fights! We fight!” on the back. The BU men wore them throughout Metcalf’s most trying season of his career.

“That was some of the toughest things I’ve had to go through in my life. Volleyball was a major thing in my life but at the end of the day was so much less significant than what my family means to me,” Rylan said, adding her health has improved.

“(Coach) Grant (Wilson) always says family comes first and that’s how it was for me. It was hard some days to focus on volleyball every day, going to practice and stuff but my teammates, my coaching staff, they … made it really easy.”

Metcalf finally earned some starts after appearing in just eight matches over his first two seasons in Blue and Gold. Before that, he embraced a supporting role for a lineup that didn’t have room for a six-foot-two outside hitter.

He knew the situation when he sought a new home in 2018 and only wanted to play with his brother. It was Brandon or nothing.

“I still remember having the conversation with Rylan when he was interested in coming here,” Wilson said. “We didn’t have a lot of room for another outside at the time and I basically said if he wanted to come here and be the world’s best teammate, work hard and see where it took him, I was fine with that.

“There were no guarantees he’d get on the roster or play. His first few years, that’s exactly what he did.

“Here we are now in a situation where he’s on the floor a lot. We need him to play well to succeed … I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

To this day, Rylan’s favourite on-court memory is checking in for a couple of points alongside Mason against MacEwan in 2018-19.

That Bobcat lineup, with Mason and James Weir in the middle, outside trio Seth Friesen, Robin Baghdady and Elliott Viles, setter Reece Dixon and libero Brady Nault, carried BU to a 20-2 record and a Canada West title.

Meanwhile, Metcalf, Max Brook and Nigel Tolley spearheaded the most exciting bench in the country.

They knew they wouldn’t sniff the spotlight, so they stole it during timeouts.

Really.

Most benches rally with volleyballs behind the baseline during stoppages as the starters talk strategy to stay warm. The Bobcats ran wheelbarrow races, built a wrestling ring with their arms and “fought,” held a dunk contest with a taller player forming his arms into a hoop or jousted by having two players hoist teammates onto their shoulders and charge across the court at each other.

“We knew the fans would get into it. I had numerous people tell me they came to the games to watch just our bench, which is pretty crazy when we had such a good team,” Metcalf chuckled.

“We definitely became a fan favourite (at nationals in Quebec City). We brought the energy, made people laugh. I’ve never taken so many pictures with random people before.”

The Bobcats lost the U Sports final that year. They fell 2-1 in the conference semifinals in 2020, one win away from nationals. After the 2020-21 season was cancelled, they fielded a completely new starting rotation and again reached the final four.

The end of every single season for Rylan in Brandon has one common denominator: All three runs ended with losses to Trinity Western. (In 2022, BU followed the semifinal defeat with a bronze-medal match loss to Calgary.)

All signs point to this weekend’s matchup repeating in the quarterfinals next week in Langley, B.C. The Bobcats can’t drop lower than their current No. 6 seed and need two wins and one UBC loss — or at least one win and two UBC losses — to move to No. 5. TWU is tied for second but Mount Royal (17-5) has an easy matchup in MacEwan (4-18) and holds the tiebreaker.

And if the Bobcats sweep the weekend, there’s a chance Saskatchewan (15-7) sweeps Winnipeg (8-14) and bumps TWU down to fourth, pitting the Bobcats and Spartans against each other anyway.

So this weekend isn’t all that important for the standings but it absolutely matters to Brandon, which has no love lost for TWU.

“We just need to bring energy, bring consistency and be prepared,” Metcalf said. “We need to come right from the first point and not take our time like we have in the past where we’d take a set to get into it. We need to go right from the first point, first serve.”

Metcalf has played every match this season, racking up 114 kills and 54 errors for a .182 hitting percentage. He has contributed 49 blocks to the No. 2 blocking team in Canada — Brandon totalled 205 blocks, 17 behind Manitoba (9-13).

He went from a guy that might never have seen the court to a key cog in a playoff-bound squad. And he, along with graduating seniors Brook, Tolley and Bryston Keck — who BU will honour before Saturday’s 6:45 p.m. match — grew into massive pieces of the Bobcats’ culture.

Metcalf leaves one key message for the returning players.

“Every point matters, every practice matters and every encounter you have with your teammates and coaches matter,” Rylan said.

“It’s a family at the end of the day. You’ve got to cherish the moments you have with them, whether it’s at practice, at a guy’s house … road trips, cherish them because it sneaks up on you when you’re done.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @thomasmfriesen