Wilson’s squad survived first-half gauntlet

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This article was published 23/12/2024 (269 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One cold night in November could go down as one of the most important evenings in Brandon volleyball history.

Regardless of what happens over the next three months, the Brandon University Bobcat men will host the best teams in the country, knowing with the help of a raucous Healthy Living Centre crowd, they can beat anyone.

The Bobcats won just four matches during a gruelling first semester, but one was the first and only loss for the defending U Sports champion Alberta Golden Bears, who had yet to sweat out even one close match.

BU (4-6) heads into the break as one of the most dangerous sub-.500 teams ever.

“Honestly, relatively pleased with where we’re at,” said Bobcats head coach Grant Wilson.

“From a wins and losses standpoint, we’re OK being 4-6. With that said, how we got some of those losses was maybe not what we figured or expected. It felt like we left a couple of opportunities on the table. We were playing arguably the top-five teams in our conference, minus Winnipeg.

“We competed night in, night out and gave ourselves some chances. We just didn’t finish on a couple of those chances.”

THE SCHEDULE

According to the Canada West pre-season coaches’ poll, seventh-ranked Brandon drew five of the top six teams, with only four matches on home court.

It split Trinity Western (7-3), lost both to UBC (7-3), then split Saskatchewan (6-4), Manitoba (4-6) and Alberta (11-1).

Up next is a Dec. 30 flight to California.

While it’s not fully a vacation — they’ll train frequently and play Concordia University-Irvine, the University of California-Irvine and Vanguard — it’s a nice reset for the team, including a trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain, the San Diego Zoo and a Los Angeles Lakers game.

They’ve made the trip twice now and Wilson feels it’s been beneficial.

“It’s a physical grind, our schedule. It’s followed by exams, which is mentally taxing for guys trying to get caught up in classes and preparing for that,” Wilson said.

“Going away from here, getting a break from the weather, a break from the usual routine, spending a lot of time together as a group and still training, still working hard but having a little bit of fun too, I feel like it can really change the perception of people’s mindset and get them refreshed and ready for Term 2.”

The second half is much less challenging, starting with a road trip to Mount Royal (2-8) on Jan. 9-10. The Bobcats travel straight to Calgary from LAX.

Then, they have a bye before a six-match home stand.

It starts with Fraser Valley (2-8) on Jan. 24-25, then Calgary (5-5) on Jan. 31-Feb. 1 and the lone undefeated team, Winnipeg (10-0) on Feb. 7-8.

The Bobcats visit the Thompson Rivers WolfPack (2-8) to close the season on Feb. 14-15 and are on track to make the top 10 for a playoff spot.

The expanded playoff format sees No. 7 host 10 and No. 8 entertain 9 in best-of-three series, followed by the standard best-of-three quarterfinals.

If the season ended today, Brandon would be in the ninth spot, visiting Manitoba, and then Winnipeg for a spot in the single-weekend final four.

“Based on the new schedule and certain teams playing certain teams and other teams not playing certain teams, we’ll see how that comes into factor down the stretch,” Wilson said.

“In terms of what’s in front of us, we keep getting better, keep improving things we need to improve on, we certainly have a chance to be successful every night.

“We’re a confident group when we’re playing well so we’ve got to really learn to lock in and stay focused on the details.”

THE LINEUP

As the Sun predicted before the season, left side Liam Pauls has emerged as Brandon’s top attacker.

The third-year left side piled up 112 kills with just 34 errors, hitting .279.

He has the highest receiving percentage on the team at .953 as he’s only allowed nine aces on 193 balls served his way.

The only knock on the Stonewall native is his serving, as he recorded 11 aces and 43 errors, and was often the guy Wilson swapped out for a more reliable option late in close sets.

“He’s always been able to jump pretty high and hit the ball hard, now it’s understanding situations, matchups, circumstances and making the right shot at the right time. On the nights he’s been good, he’s done a really good job of that,” Pauls said.

“The nights he’s struggled, he’s maybe tried to do too much, try to bury in maybe situations that weren’t ideal. It’s a work in progress but he’s definitely a step ahead of where he was last year.

“His serve is just such a weapon but it comes back to that word ‘consistency,’ he’s got to find a level of consistency with his toss and contact. When he does that, his serve is causing a world of trouble for whoever’s on the other end of it.”

Senior middle blocker Philipp Lauter is back up to a solid .341 hitting percentage, with 65 kills and 21 errors.

The German import’s success is often a reflection of BU’s passing, which hasn’t been consistently good enough to get one of the craftiest attackers in the league as many swings as setter JJ Love would like.

Not only is he Brandon’s most efficient option, but he also opens the offence up for the rest of his teammates. The contrast was most evident between the four-set win over Alberta and the Golden Bears’ 3-0 sweep the following night.

Lauter posted six kills on 11 attempts in the first match, then just two kills and two errors on four swings in the second one.

The trend was consistent for Chris Bryant, who emerged from a tough pre-season competition for the second middle blocker job.

Bryant is primarily in for his blocking but got the ball more than twice as much during BU’s win than in the loss. Bryant is second in the league to Manitoba’s Jonah Dueck with 41 blocks and 1.05 blocks per set.

“Philipp was back to that dominant force where other teams were basically full-on committing to him when we passed well,” Wilson said.

“[Bryant] has the ability to float, hybrid, spin [serve] and has put teams in difficulty with all of those. And his read blocking and patience at the net have been really good. We get a little bit of offence out of him from time to time and that’s a bit of a bonus because our focus is really on the serving and block defence.”

Some of the passing woes can be chalked up to the lack of stability in the passing positions.

Tom Friesen started six matches while Sam Chen got the other four.

Chen has been aced on 13 of his 77 passing attempts, a significant drop from Friesen’s nine of 139.

Interestingly, the six-foot-six Friesen’s taken a big step back at the net, hitting just .128 while the six-foot-three Chen is at .167.

Friesen is still battling a pesky knee injury that caused him to miss the 2023 pre-season and missed the last three matches before the break due to shingles.

“We have way too much on the line in Term 2 and we’re just doing our best to get him healthy into the break so he can take advantage of hitting the weight room and coming back in Term 2 a little bit stronger,” Wilson said of the fourth-year from Reinfeld.

“Offensively, he always has proven that and his reception has been pretty stable too but make no mistake, there’s a bit of competition going on with the development of how Sam’s game has come along.

“You can see he’s starting to get a better understanding of shots, offensive choices and matchups.”

Meanwhile, Jon Droppert jumped in as the passing libero, winning the job as BU’s top passer in the pre-season according to Wilson, but has been picked on to the tune of 27 receiving errors on a team-high 230 attempts.

Droppert and Michael Flor have continued handling passing and defensive libero duties, respectively.

“For the most part we’re pretty satisfied with where things are at,” Wilson said.

“Mikey and Jonny have both had flashes of brilliance and flashes of, ‘We need to get better pretty soon’ moments.”

On the right side, Riley Grusing has scored a lot and given away a bunch of points, too. He has 94 kills and 54 errors for an underwhelming .150 hitting percentage.

“Here’s a guy who’s still only in his second year in Canada West. Yeah, he’s been here a while but he played three years of college and didn’t have the opportunity of growth in this league like some other guys have so he’s still learning to manage a six-foot-10 block in front of him,” Wilson said.

“His toolbox of shots is improving and getting better. Then it’s a matter of making the right choice of what tool to bring out at what time.”

BY THE NUMBERS

The first half of an old adage is nearly perfectly reflected in the standings.

Offence wins games, and the league’s hitting percentages are almost completely consistent with the standings. Brandon’s ninth in the standings and 10th with a mark of .217. Alberta (.372) and Winnipeg (.314) are at the top, with third-place UBC close behind at .304.

If defence does indeed win championships, the Bobcats are on the right track, sitting first with 2.32 blocks per set and second at 9.51 digs per set.

All those numbers can be traced back to serving and passing.

“In the games we lost, it really seemed to come back to the first touch,” Wilson said. “On the nights we were good, we served well and passed well.

“We’ve got to find a way to be mentally focused and dialled in every day and really take pride in our first touch.”

When BU returns to home court, it’s trading start times with the women since it plans to take the 6 p.m. quarterfinal slot at nationals and wants to get used to the longer on-court warmup available.

The men will play at 6 p.m., with the women following at 7:45 on Fridays. Saturdays begin an hour earlier.

There’s definitely a chance Brandon has more than a month between its last home match of the regular season and that national quarterfinal, but Wilson feels that might not be the case.

The Bobcats are three wins back of a home quarterfinal, but have a path to the top four with a strong second half and a little bit of help.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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