Trinity Western sweeps Brandon into bronze-medal match

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This article was published 19/03/2022 (1459 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you face a six-headed monster, there isn’t much you can do if the fifth has a hot hand.

Mathias Elser — typically one of two setters in Trinity Western’s complex offence with just 56 kills in the regular season — walloped 15 kills on 21 attacks as the Spartans swept the Brandon University Bobcats 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-20) in the Canada West men’s volleyball semifinals Friday night in Langley, B.C.

“We’ve said all along, we personally think he’s the best player on their team,” said Bobcats head coach Grant Wilson. “Last time we played them we stopped him twice early with some solid blocking and then they kind of went away from him, whereas (Friday) we didn’t have those two stops so they kept feeding him and he went off.”

The other four TWU attackers combined for 25 kills while the Spartans had just 12 errors and a .394 hitting percentage to Brandon’s .099. They punched their ticket to the U Sports championship and play for the conference crown tonight, while the Bobcats Calgary for bronze after the Dinos’ four-set loss to Alberta. All three medallists go to nationals at the University of Manitoba on March 25-27, so today’s match at 6 p.m. CDT is undoubtedly the biggest of BU’s season.

“The focus is still on us,” Wilson said. “We know the teams here are probably better than us but we still feel if we play to our potential and play to the way we can, we have the ability to beat these teams and that’s really all we’re looking for: The opportunity one more time to try and play our best volleyball.”

The Bobcats struggled with their first touch early and the Spartans were as efficient as possible, allowing just one two-point run for BU as they raced ahead 16-8. Max Brook served a little run on three uncharacteristic Trinity Western errors to make it 19-14 but the edge was too much for the country’s top-ranked team to give away.

Mathias Elser, who sets and hits both outside positions in TWU’s modified 6-2 system, racked up seven kills on 10 attempts in the set, committing his only error right before carving a cross-court shot to put the first set away. TWU put up 15 kills with four errors while Brandon had eight and six in the opening frame.

The second set was near-perfect side-out volleyball early. A Jens Watt error gave TWU its only point on serve for a while, then Watt and Philipp Lauter stuffed Mathias Elser to go up 8-7 with the rest of the points back and forth to 11-11.

Lauter and Brook’s errors gave TWU a three-point run, however, then the Spartans got hands on a few Bobcats’ attacks and turned them into devastating kills on another four points. First, it was Brodie Hofer, then Elser, then Jesse Elser from his brother on a surprise second-contact blast, and Jackson Howe on a back-set to open up a 17-12 advantage.

Like the way the set started, the teams traded kills and service errors to 23-17.

Brandon narrowed the gap as Hofer and Jesse Elser twice erred at the net. Once again, the gap was too great. Hofer brought up set point and Jesse Elser redeemed himself by flushing down a Lauter tip to pull ahead 2-0.

TWU had 16 kills and four errors, hitting .500 while Brandon had nine and four for .217.

The third was an error fest from the service line as both sides missed three in the first nine points. The Spartans’ block defence took over, stuffing Joao Cunha, Brook and Bryston Keck to get ahead 9-7. Paycen Warkentin subbed in for Keck and picked up a kill, then served a few points — a Lauter block and kill — to pull back ahead.

Lauter missed Brandon’s seventh serve of the set as BU fell behind 16-14.

Lauter nearly caught Colton Loewen sleeping but the libero turned around and went airborne, flicking the ball over his head with one arm perfectly to Canada West player of the year Derek Epp, who dished to Jesse Elser for the play of the match to lead 18-15.

Jesse Elser then tied the Canada West record for aces in the playoffs with 18 and broke it the following point to make it 22-16. TWU led BU back into it with three straight miscues to make it 23-20 but Fleming missed another serve and Lauter ended it with his fourth hitting error of the night.

Lauter led BU with just seven kills while Watt added five and Brook chipped in four. Libero Liam Nohr had a team-high seven digs.

“They were the better team from start to finish,” Wilson said. “ They had really good service pressure, we didn’t. They received serve really well and we didn’t and that’s never a good combination. The better team won.”

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