Alberta outlasts Sherbrooke in five-set semifinal

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This article was published 22/03/2025 (208 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Alberta Golden Bears suddenly found their U Sports men’s volleyball title defence on the brink of extinction, but they came up clutch.

They survived a rematch of last year’s final, beating the Sherbrooke Vert et Or 3-2 (25-12, 25-15, 19-25, 19-25, 15-10) at the Healthy Living Centre on Saturday night.

“We knew it was going to be a battle going in,” said Alberta setter Luke Weddell, who finished with 45 assists.

“They’re a great team, they’ve got lots of fight and even being up two, we weren’t comfortable. We knew if anyone was going to come and push us back it was going to be Sherbrooke.

“They’re a great team and they’ve got some dogs on their team.”
The Golden Bears face the host Brandon University Bobcats, who reverse swept the Saskatchewan Huskies in the first semifinal, in Sunday’s gold-medal match at 6 p.m.

They imposed their will early and often against the Vert et Or, starting with a Liam Espedido serving run to lead 6-1.

Alberta kept its efficient, powerful offence rolling from a 3-0 win over Windsor on Friday, while Sherbrooke missed too many serves for a team with a deficit to climb out of.

The Bears had nine kills and just one error at the net, limiting the Vert et Or to six and five as they more than doubled them en route to a 1-0 lead.

The second set was 10-9 Alberta when Trent Cherewaty went back to the line and rattled off a run of seven, including two aces.

The Canada West runner-up was nearly flawless offensively, posting 15 kills and one error to go up 2-0.

A switch flipped in the third, however, as the Vert et Or blocked anything and everything.

Gregoire Mercier-Noel was in on a lot of it, recording two blocks, an ace and a kill to up this side up 10-7.

He made two more stuffs on a five-point run to lead 17-9 and the Vert et Or easily forced a fourth set.

Sherbrooke managed a perfect fourth set at the net, hammering home 12 kills without an error while Alberta had 16 and five. The result was a 17-12 lead the Vert et Or took to the finish line, sending it to the tiebreaker.

While the RSEQ champs struggled to beat the Alberta block early, they used it late, chiseling kills off hands and out of play.

But Dylan Martens responded with a few kills and an ace in the middle of the set, giving Alberta a 9-6 lead when Sherbrooke coach Fethi Abed took his first timeout.

Martens’ run continued when Cherewaty stuffed Hugo Ouellet, followed by another ace to make it 11-6 at Abed’s second breather.

Julien Vanier brought Sherbrooke back to 12-9 with back-to-back aces, but Isaac Heslinga took over. Alberta set him three times in a row before he made a block, then he added a kill before Yoan David hit into Espedido’s block to send the Bears back to the final.

“I know all my attackers got my best, especially when you got a guy like Heslinga on the outside. It’s pretty easy to give him the ball and have a lot of trust in him,” Weddell said.

“Our group can take a lot of confidence out of that battle we just went through into tomorrow’s championship match.”

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