Huskies beat Bisons in four in playoff opener

SASKATOON — The University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s volleyball team won in the opening game of their postseason, with a 3-1 win (25-22, 11-25, 26-24, 25-19) over the Manitoba Bisons at the Physical Activity Complex.

Emily Koshinsky led the way for Saskatchewan, as she recorded five service aces in the fourth set, hoisting the Huskies to a four-set victory and ultimately the win.

“She’s been their difference maker all year long,” said Bentley. “She’s had a great year. I thought we did a pretty good job against her attack, but she’s still a great six rotation player and her serving was really good there at the end.

Koshinsky recorded 15 kills in the contest, while Jessica Andjeclic had a game-high 27 digs for Saskatchewan.

After closing the regular-season on a six-game win streak, the victory helped Saskatchewan open up the postseason with a win—only the program’s second playoff win since 2002.

The Huskies opened in dominant fashion, but it was the Bisons that responded. It was a rocky set for Saskatchewan who had a -.185 hitting-percentage in the frame. The Bisons took advantage and went on to close the set on 15-3 run, off the backs of three kills from Light Ucheckukwu and 11 attack errors from the Huskies in the frame.

But ultimately, it was the Huskies who rallied off the third and fourth sets to record the win.

“That just shows the sign of some maturity and a pretty good team, which I think we have when you can bounce back from a set like that,” said Dodds.

“To rebound and come back like we did should give us some confidence for tomorrow, even though we didn’t play our best today.”

Kills from Eve Catojo and Ella Gray notched the third frame up at 24 apiece, but after a Dodds timeout, back-to-back kills from Elyse Allard and Devyn Ethier gave the Huskies the advantage, winning the set 26-24.

Koshinsky was the difference maker in the fourth-and-final frame, as she grabbed the ball at the back line and rallied off nine consecutive points on serve—five of which aces—to give the Huskies a 17-9 lead. The advantage ultimately proved to be an insurmountable deficit for the visiting Bisons, despite a run of their own, as an Averie Allard service ace put an end to the frame and contest, making it 25-19.

“This is kind of a big moment for our program and for her in her fifth year and there you go — a good player being able to battle some nerves and kind of get past it and then show what kind of player she is and she started putting some big time pressure on the other team,” said Dodds, when asked about Koshinsky.

“Emily got a bit of a run on their serving and that was the only time that they scored points in bunches on us. She put us in trouble. She’s a great server, outside of that, we still fought really hard to get back in the set,” said Bentley. “We were a couple of points for making it pretty interesting there in the fourth.”

Ucheckukwu led the way for Manitoba, recording 22 kills and two service aces. Despite opening up their postseason with a loss, Bentley was extremely pleased with how his team performed in their first playoff game since Feb. 22, 2019.

“I thought we played great,” said Bentley. “It was a good battle. It was a good playoff match. Great environment. Other than not winning, it was a great match.”

Manitoba will turn their sight to Mount Royal, who they will battle at 8:00 CST at the PAC.

“We need to win tomorrow and we’ll see what we can do on Saturday. Whether we won or lost tonight, it would’ve guaranteed nothing. We got to get rid of this pretty quickly and reload, and I’m sure we will. I’m confident in our prep, our training and our team,” said Bentley.

Meanwhile the Huskies will shift their focus to UBC Okanagan, which gets underway at 6:00 CST.

“Now I think we can just settle in and play. We’re going to play two really good teams and we can get back to just playing volleyball and see what happens,” said Dodds.

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