CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos men’s volleyball team opened the new year with a painfully close 3-0 loss to the Brandon University Bobcats Friday night from the Jack Simpson Gym.
All three frames came down to the wire, with Brandon claiming the win, 25-23, 27-25, 25-20.
Louis Kunstmann led the Dinos in points this game with 11 kills and two blocks. Riley Grusing pulled ahead for the Bobcats with 15 kills and two blocks, followed by Liam Pauls with 12 kills and three blocks.
Dinos setter Zack Durrant managed 20 assists, five digs, and three kills this game. Bobcats setter JJ Love racked up 37 assists with a hand on almost every play and three kills, three digs, and two blocks.
Brandon took the first set in a close game with an end score of 25-23. The Dinos and Bobcats matched kills with 13 each, but the Bobcats managed to pull ahead in defense and blocks as they capitalized on the Dinos mistakes. Jens Watts would finish off the set with a kill.
The second set proved even closer, as Brandon needed extras before finishing this one off, 27-25. The Bobcats finished with an impressive .424 hitting percentage with 18 total kills in the frame, while the Dinos were limited to just a .233 attack for the set.
The third and final set saw the Bobcats take an early lead with an eight-point gap at one point at 15-7. The Dinos maintained their fight and brought the score closer together in the final tally but couldn’t quite get over the hump, 25-20. Riley Grusing finished off the night with a kill to send Brandon home with the win.
“We had a good last week of practice in San Diego, and we wanted to keep that going and leave it all out there,” Dinos libero Austin Ellchuk said postgame. “We want to push with the little details like coverage, ‘block D,’ and stuff like that. Coverage has been something for us we’ve been trying to work on – it helps put trust in our hitters that they have coverage and it stresses out the other team that we’re keeping the ball in play. Tomorrow night we need to serve better in our own gym, we practice in here all the time and need to be more consistent.”
The Dinos and Bobcats will meet again Saturday at 5 p.m. in the Jack Simpson Gymnasium.
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