Manitoba drops Brandon in four sets

It’s tough to pinpoint the difference in a match decided by just a few points, but it came down to a basic game plan the Manitoba Bisons executed on Friday night.

They put the ball in the hands of their elite block defence and scored the key points in a 3-1 (28-26, 25-21, 26-24, 25-23) victory over the Brandon University Bobcats, improving to 3-4 on the Canada West men’s volleyball season.

“We knew our block defence was one of our strengths and we were making too many errors on the service line,” said fifth-year outside hitter Eric Ogaranko.

“We had to change our mindset with that to just put the ball in, trust our block defence and it was a battle but that was a good switch for us.”

Sure enough, the Bisons missed 16 serves while the Bobcats (3-4) erred 27 times from the line.

They also finished with nine blocks to Brandon’s six.

Little separated the teams in the first set, one with just 10 of the first 36 points scored by the serving team in an 18-18 tie.

The Bisons were the only team to lead by more than two, with a timely Jonah Dueck ace to go up 10-7 and a Riley Brunet error at 16-13.

But after the U of M led 22-20, Tom Friesen and Liam Pauls scored to tie it and Karil Dadash Adeh blasted an attack long to give BU its first lead since 6-5.

Brandon had three chances with set point but wasted two with serves out the back, then committed a blocking fault to give Manitoba a chance to end it.

Friesen’s attack missed wide on a long rally to put the Bisons up 1-0.

The Bobcats broke the section set open early as Sam Chen provided the spark at opposite in relief of Liam Kindle.

Chen scored twice on a three-point BU run to lead 15-10.

The Bobcats stayed in the driver’s seat with a relatively error-free set, up 22-17 before the Bisons clamped down defensively and made it tough to score.

They narrowed the gap a bit, but the BU was able to close it out thanks to a service error to tie the match 1-1.

The Bobcats dictated how the third set ebbed and flowed. They hammered home three straight kills to lead 11-8, then erred thrice to give it right back.

The back half of the set was a sloppy run of missed serves and errors on both sides, with the hosts making a few more mistakes to let the Bisons sneak ahead by two.

That was all they needed, capitalizing on their second set point to go ahead 2-1.

The fourth set was also airtight to 18-18, when Manitoba’s Owen Weekes celebrated a little too hard for his block after he’d already received a yellow card earlier in the match. He received a red card, giving a free point to Brandon.

But the Bisons responded and pulled back ahead 24-23, and who else but Weekes finished it with his team-high 16th kill to go with six errors and four blocks.

“We responded great,” Ogaranko said.

“It’s hard to not get emotional in those heated moments but right after we did a good job of trying to reset as a group and say, ‘Forget it,’ stay level headed and trust what we’ve been doing.”

Pauls led BU with 19 kills and four errors, while Friesen posted 17 and two.

Chen had seven kills off the bench while no other Bobcat had more than three.

Ogaranko posted 15 kills and three errors.

The teams play again today at 6:45 p.m.

BU BASKETBALL: In Edmonton, the Bobcat women’s basketball team lost 91-53 to the Alberta Pandas on Friday. Piper Ingalls led BU with 12 points. The men’s game ended after deadline. Brandon and Alberta play again this evening.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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