Cougars middle Brost settles in as veteran

It’d be tough to find an Assiniboine College athlete who improved more than Heather Brost since the start of their Cougars’ career.

The third-year middle blocker from Maple Creek, Sask., admits the jump from small-town club volleyball to the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference was too big for her to handle at first, but she’s now a starter on a team with a strong chance at qualifying for nationals.

“You don’t really often see that steep climb, but she was probably a little bit raw coming in. Now in her third year, she’s really finding the game way more comfortable and has a way more positive impact,” said Cougars coach Kevin Neufeld.

“She’s a really good athlete. She’s the high touch on our team, she’s bouncy and she really is a great competitor that plays with great energy. She doesn’t get down on herself anymore.

“Sometimes first years get frustrated easier, and she’s just learned to manage her own mental health and her own energy. That’s what we expect out of a third-year athlete.”

The biggest difference for Brost this year is that confidence has replaced nervousness during the first month of training and exhibition play.

She recorded four kills and five blocks as the Cougars beat the Briercrest College Clippers 3-1 (20-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-23) on Friday evening.

The teams meet again at the Healthy Living Centre today, once the Clippers finish their 2 p.m., match against the Brandon University Bobcats.

“Meeting all the new girls, I feel for them because I know what it’s like being a first-year,” Brost said. “My first year, I was so scared because I was coming so far from home.

“Coming onto a team really helped because so many girls were feeling the same.”

Brost moved from near the Saskatchewan-Alberta border more than 700 kilometres east to continue an unusual volleyball career.

She didn’t play high school ball, save for a month in Grade 10, before she left the regular school system to complete her last three years online.

Brost wanted to work and found out she could complete her diploma on her own time, so while her peers were going through their regular high school experience, she worked at a museum and a pharmacy, as a babysitter, with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, and once she turned 17, as a home care aide.

Her volleyball experience came exclusively in the club system with the Southwest Raiders, based out of Fox Valley. Saskatchewan rules allow two overage players on each 18-and-under team, so she was able to play the 2023 club season after completing her education.

Now, as a college athlete with more than four years of full-time work under her belt, she doesn’t feel like a typical 21-year-old.

“Like 43,” she chuckled. “I feel very old, I go to bed very early. I definitely feel a lot older for my age, but whenever I’m around kids my age, we have those little outbursts of energy where I feel young again.”

The Cougars, on the other hand, are as old as they’ve ever been, and that experience has shown up early this year.

AC has put together a solid pre-season, including a 3-0 sweep of Dakota College at Bottineau, five-set wins over Briercrest and Keyano College, and a 3-1 victory over Northwestern Polytechnic.

The Cougars lost 3-0 to the defending Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association champion Lakeland Rustlers and the Ambrose Lions of Alberta.

Neufeld can’t overstate the effect of Brost and fellow third-years Marie Dunster, Kiera Virgo, Kylee Peake, and Jordyn Bradbury.

“It’s been almost shocking to me, the impact,” Neufeld said. “We have five third-year players, and I’ve never had a third-year player since I started coaching. It’s interesting how the little things they didn’t do in Year 1 and sometimes Year 2, they just don’t do those. The balls don’t land around people, the block and turn and a ball comes to you, you can play it.

“They’re not huge changes, but they’re like one or two points a set. If it’s saving two points for us and taking two from them, that’s four, and we generally win those sets now, rather than lose, so that’s been a big difference.”

A few points would have been the difference last year for the Cougars, who lost a four-set semifinal to Canadian Mennonite University last season, with the third and fourth sets hitting 26-24.

Since the defending champion Providence Pilots are hosting CCAA nationals in 2026, they and the top remaining MCAC finisher will represent the province in March.

“We’ve always had the fierceness to want to go, it just never worked out,” Brost said. “This year, we’re really wanting it.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Instagram: @thomasfriesen5