Cougars complete dream season

Whenever the Assiniboine College Cougars asked if they could try a new position, head coach Kevin Neufeld gave a wry smile and delivered the same response.

“He always tells us when he wins Miss America, we can play libero,” middle blocker Heather Brost said with a laugh.

There was a time when the idea of Neufeld being in a beauty pageant and the Cougars winning a Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference women’s volleyball championship felt equally unlikely.

But this year, it was destiny.

Assiniboine overcame a slow start and dominated the 2025-26 campaign, capping it with a decisive 3-0 (25-22, 25-22, 25-11) sweep of the Canadian Mennonite University Blazers on Sunday, taking the championship series 2-0.

“All the girls have worked super hard for this and I’m really proud of our team,” said Binscarth native Kylee Peake, who was named championship MVP after two straight 16-kill performances.

“We’ve always said before that we have really good depth, that anyone who comes in is going to do their best. It kind of showed (Sunday) that we can put anyone on the court and still do a great job.”

On Saturday, Peake recorded 16 kills with just four errors and 19 digs as the Cougars won 3-1 (25-20, 26-28, 25-19, 25-20).

Rookie of the year Payton McNish added 13 kills on Saturday, but spent the night in the hospital due to swelling in her neck.

Neufeld said she could have been available if needed on Sunday evening in Match 3, but it opened the door for Celina Toews to start. Toews came off the bench for an impressive nine-kill, error-free effort in the series opener, so the team was confident it would keep rolling.

“Depth only matters if your starters are mature enough to handle not being out there. Our team was very invested in our team and really wanted to see our team be successful,” Neufeld said.

“It’s not easy but that made a big difference — people genuinely happy for their teammates to be successful.”

The Cougars opened up a comfortable lead in the first set and held it most of the way. They had four set points and used three of them to pull ahead 1-0 on a Marie Dunster kill.

The Blazers answered with a stronger second set, just like Saturday, and led 17-14 at one point. But the Cougars narrowed the gap and pulled ahead, getting to 24-20 once again.

CMU fought off two set points but made a costly hitting error to head into the third set down 2-0.

AC left no doubt in the third, as player of the year Tyra Lasuik opened the frame on an eight-point serving run.

The lead only grew from there as the Cougars bombed away from the service line and hit even harder at the net, going up 14-3.

Assiniboine blocked the lights out down the stretch, and took a few wild swings as it wanted to finish with a bang, but smartly let a serve sail long to end it.

Dunster finished with a solid 10 kills and one error for AC, while libero Jordyn Bradbury made 11 digs and was named the team’s player of the match.

Halle Meisner posted 15 kills and five errors for CMU, earning a second straight player of the match nod.

The MCAC shifted to the best-of-three series last year to ensure the best team heads to nationals, and Neufeld feels that is happening.

“We were the best team this year. I think our record proved that,” he said. “I had a little bit of doubt when we started 0-3 but we go 13-2 the rest of the way and played pretty well. We got some consistency in our game and it wasn’t any big upset.

“It’s never easy to win but our team was full merit to win, for sure.”

The Cougars are making a short trip to Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association nationals, just a few hours east to Niverville to join the host Providence Pilots, the rest of the conference champions and a wildcard team in the eight-team field on March 11-14.

“We’ll celebrate tonight, then this week we’re going to have good practices and come in just as hungry as every other team,” Peake said.

After the medal presentation and photos, Brost grabbed the public address microphone and explained the team’s “Miss America” joke before Lasuik walked over, grinning ear to ear, and placed a tiara and sash on Neufeld.

The longtime coach laughed and reluctantly kept them on just long enough for one more team photo.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com