WINNIPEG — The Calgary Dinos are the first team to move to 2-0 in Pool C, sitting in strong position heading into the final day of action of pool play in the Canada West conference men’s volleyball playoffs.
The Dinos got 19 kills on 31 swings from Hamish Hazelden and defeated the Manitoba Bisons 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-22) in the late match Friday night, a victory that moved the Dinos to 2-0 for the weekend and assured them a spot in the next round next weekend.
Hazelden hit .548 and the Dinos attacked at .278 for the night in dominating the Bisons, who fell to 0-2 and were officially eliminated.
“I think we passed the ball as good as we have all weekend and I think that allowed our setter, Tommy (Sorra), to do a good job running the offence and I thought we did a good job,” Calgary head coach Rod Durrant said. “We’ve been very solid (at the net). We worked together with our block defence. Teams are hitting the ball high and hard, so you’ve got to be disciplined at the net. I think it’s got to work in conjunction with the back-row guys, and tonight I thought we did a good job digging some balls along with putting up a solid block.”
Calgary – the top-ranked team in Canada in blocks – finished with another 11 rejections in the three-set win. Lincoln Baines and Hazelden led the way with five a piece.
Ben Carleton and Spencer Grahame both had 10 kills for the Bisons, who hit .101 on the night.
The Dinos, the pool’s No. 2 seed, will face No. 1 seed Winnipeg in their final match of the round-robin format on Saturday (6 p.m. CT).
Manitoba closes against UBC-Okanagan, who moved to 1-1 with a five-set win over Winnipeg earlier in the night.
The top two teams advance to next weekend where the remaining teams will be split into two pools of three to determine who goes to the conference Final Four.
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