Bobcats edge Dinos in tiebreaker

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This article was published 03/02/2025 (277 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon University Bobcats were good enough when they needed to be on Saturday, and not much more.

They gutted out a 3-2 (23-25, 25-17, 25-17, 19-25, 15-13) victory over the Calgary Dinos (7-11) at the Healthy Living Centre, climbing to seventh in the Canada West men’s volleyball standings.

After a flat fourth set, Tom Friesen’s solo block to end a gritty fifth brought relief to the BU side (7-9) that couldn’t afford to get swept.

“Very good. (Friday) definitely stung pretty good so this is a bit of redemption here,” said middle blocker Philipp Lauter.

“Plus, every home game is a special event, especially if we win it.”

Brandon posted 52 kills and 26 errors for a .191 hitting percentage while Calgary had 49 and 25 for .175.

In some cases, they were good, like Liam Pauls leading the way with 16 kills and seven errors while serving three aces. Lauter had a solid 10-kill, three-error outing with four blocks and Ryden Hargreaves led the team with a .429 hitting percentage on seven kills and one error.

On the other hand, Riley Grusing turned 37 attempts into a .054 hitting percentage by recording 13 kills and 11 errors against a Dinos block defence that requires a lot of patience to beat.

“We’ve been talking about it ad nauseum, our choices in those situations and I still wasn’t overly thrilled with a lot of those choices,” said Bobcats coach Grant Wilson.

“We did make some better choices, I thought Paulsy worked the court really well but we just need to have a little more awareness of what’s in front of us.

“Trying to teach the difference between a situation where we can make ‘em pay or need to make ‘em play. We can do a better job with some of those decisions.”

Calgary was slightly cleaner in serve receive early, setting up one-on-one situations while making BU hit into double and triple blocks as it pulled ahead 12-8.

After a timeout, Pauls stepped back to the line and blasted back-to-back aces to tie it 13-13, then shanked a pass as the Dinos rattled off three points to regain control.

Grusing sandwiched two unforced attacking errors with a missed serve as Calgary pulled ahead 20-15.

When the Bobcats finally strung a few points together with stingy defence to tie it 21-21, they followed it up with two more costly hitting errors, reaching seven in the set they only lost by two.

Grusing blocked left side Cole Czepuryk on back-to-back plays early in the second set, reading his attempt to tip off hands and out of play and turning the ball down, giving BU a three-point edge.

But again, the Bobcats started blasting the ball high, wide and long to the tune of five errors to let the Dinos tie it 8-8.

Grusing served pocket rockets to go back up 16-13, then Lauter took over with a kill, a block and an ace as the Bobcats pulled away to tie the match 1-1.

BU didn’t record a block in the first set but piled up three in the second while limiting its hitting errors to four.

Lauter said passing was the key.

“That was a huge part. That was something they cleaned up from (Friday) during the match and we really started to get a grip of their servers. That certainly helped us open up the offence in all kinds of ways,” he said.

The Bobcats kept that trend going in the third as their top defensive pair, JJ Love and Lauter, rejected two balls during a 6-1 run to lead 13-8.

When Love went back to serve, he gave the Dinos all sorts of problems getting the ball where it needed to go. Then he fed his go-to guys, Pauls and Grusing for one kill after another to make it 20-11.

Calgary simply wasn’t climbing out of that hole as Brandon pulled ahead 2-1.

The Dinos shook it off though, and as the Bobcats’ serving eased up, they passed right to setter Zack Durrant, who fed his middle blockers for a bundle of kills. Meanwhile, BU’s passing weakened as well, leading to more transition attacks for U of C to pull ahead 16-10.

They traded points until a comeback felt impossible and Brandon coach Grant Wilson made a few subs to prepare for the tie-breaking set.

It was early in the set, but the Bobcats made the save of the night when Grusing pancaked the ball on the second contact and libero Michael Flor stretched across the court and knocked it over, allowing Love a chance to make a big block to lead 2-0.

BU took the next point, then Lauter blasted a kill and an ace to go up 5-1 and force Dinos’ rookie coach Graham Vigrass to call timeout. The break worked though, as Calgary scored the next four to draw level.

Lauter lifted BU back up by winning a joust against Jackson Meier in the middle, then Meier made a big error into the net one point later to put Brandon up 12-9.

Calgary again settled down and extended a few rallies, finding open space in BU’s backcourt to tie it 12-12.

BU went ahead on a Meier error, then sent Kale Fisher in to not only serve but set. He caught Calgary off guard and connected with Love for a surprise left side kill to bring up match point.

“Gut feeling,” Wilson said of the decision to have Fisher run the offence for one massive point.

“Honestly, it was more for defensive reasons. I wanted JJ matched up with the middle and the C-ball because they were having success there. I put him on that side to defend and so the logical thing is to have Kale set from the other side.

“It just speaks to the depth of our guys. We trust everybody out there. We keep saying it and it might get old but it’s going to take all of us to get the job done and any given night, you never know who’s going to step up. Certain guys did again (Saturday).”

Brandon held Kunstmann to a more than acceptable 13 kills and six errors a day after he posted 18 and two.

Meier started hot but cooled off, finishing with 11 kills and five errors.

The Bobcats were on the verge of missing the playoffs just a few weeks ago. While they haven’t officially clinched one of the 10 spots, they are now in position to avoid the play-in round if they can win three of their remaining four matches.

However, the first two certainly won’t be easy against the first-place Winnipeg Wesmen (14-2) this Friday and Saturday.

“Welcome to the third round of the playoffs,” Wilson said. “We gotta get better one play at a time and one day at a time. They’re going to be a pretty big mountain to climb but I’d rather do it here than there.

“We still gotta find a way to win some games out of our next couple of weekends or we’re going to have a pretty lengthy layoff before nationals, which is not something we want.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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