ABBOTSFORD – The Brandon Bobcats outlasted the Calgary Dinos in an epic five-set thriller in the playoff opener for both teams, Thursday night at the UFV Athletic Centre.
The Bobcats rallied from a two-set deficit and appeared poised to take the fifth set with relative ease, up 14-10. The Dinos made them work for it, though – they staved off an incredible eight match points before finally succumbing (25-20, 26-28, 22-25, 25-19, 20-18).
The Bobcats improve to 1-0 in Pool A action, while leaving the Dinos at 0-1. Both teams are in action Friday – Brandon faces the UFV Cascades (0-1) in Abbotsford, while Calgary visits the Trinity Western Spartans (1-0) in Langley. Both matches start at 6 p.m. and will be webcast at CanadaWest.tv presented by Co-op.
“That’s kind of been our year – we’ve been going to five a lot and finding different ways to win,” Bobcats head coach Lee Carter said afterward. “A bit of a chess match, that game. We came out in the beginning (of the fifth) and they seemed to climb their way back, and it was like that all the way through. It was two hard-fighting teams not wanting to let it end.
“We just got caught a little bit excited on serve-receive towards the end. Serve-receive is such a focused activity, you’ve got to be right in the moment for that. Once we got tied, we settled down and passed the ball better, and were able to do more things with it. . . . It was just a matter of staying in the moment.”
Rayvn Wiebe led the way for the Bobcats with 20 kills, and Kaoane Loch had a big night in the middle with 12 kills on 18 swings for a .556 hitting percentage. Keely Anderson added 11 kills, and Jamie Bain registered 41 assists for Brandon.
Kenzie Vaandering (19 kills, .259 hitting percentage) and Carolyn Berze (12 kills, .257) had big games for the Dinos. Regan Ingram chipped in with 10 kills, and setter Stella Rains had 41 assists.
“It was a fight to be proud of,” Calgary head coach Christine Biggs said. “We’ve got a lot of young players on our team, it’s their first Canada West playoffs, and it’s the first time we’ve crossed over (divisions) after playing the same three teams over and over again (in the regular season). I think they did a really nice job of adapting through the match and making adjustments, and fighting when maybe the score indicated it could have been out of reach at times.”
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