PREVIEW: Huskies head west, chasing Final Four appearance

GAME INFORMATION

Date: Friday, Mar. 11 & Saturday, Mar. 12
Time: 10:00 p.m. & 9:00 p.m.
Opponents: Trinity Western Spartans & Calgary Dinos
Location: Langley, B.C.
Watch: Canadawest.tv

And from 12 down to six.

The University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s volleyball team is chasing down a Canada West Final Four appearance.

Only six teams remain in the Canada West postseason, as two pools of three teams will compete this weekend for the right to move on to the Final Four.

The Huskies will have their hands full. They travelled west on Thursday and on deck this weekend are a pair of clashes against two of the nation’s best. Inside the latest U SPORTS Top Ten, the Trinity Western Spartans were ranked as the nation’s number-one ranked team, while the Calgary Dinos were ranked number-seven.

The Huskies are set to renew an old rivalry against Calgary on Saturday. The green-and-white matched up with the Dinos nine times in conference postseason action between 1985-2003 — with the 2003 quarter-final victory being the last playoff meeting between the pair of programs.

The Spartans finished the regular-season with a 15-1 record and went 3-0 in the opening round of the playoffs, while the Dinos were 13-5 in the regular-season and enter the weekend with  a 2-1 record in the postseason.

Saskatchewan is looking for their first playoff win over Trinity Western since the 2004 season.

But to be the best, you need to beat the best and that’ll be the motto for the Dogs this weekend.

The Huskies recorded the program’s first pair of playoff wins since 2016 last weekend, opening the postseason with a thrilling four-set victory over the UBC Thunderbirds, which helped catapult them to this point — which served as head coach Sean McKay‘s first-career Canada West playoff win.

Saskatchewan continues to be led by Dylan Mortensen and Skyler Varga. The pair of outside hitters were each recognized by the conference on Wednesday. Mortensen was named a Canada West second team all-star, while Varga earned a Canada West all-rookie team nod.

Mortensen leads Saskatchewan with 32 kills this postseason, while his six playoff service aces ranks fourth in the conference.

The Huskies will need the pair of Saskatchewan products to continue to produce this weekend, as the program chases after their first conference championship since 2004.

Thoughts from McKay:

McKay on what it’s like to be moving on to the second round:

I think the guys are super excited. To get through that first round — with this year’s set up there’s three rounds so we’re in the final six now — so I think we’re to a point now where every team we’re going to see is going to be a really good volleyball team.So I think the guys are excited to kind of test their metal against some really, really good opponents this weekend.

McKay on the importance for the program to have the chance to test themselves against some of the conference’s perennial powerhouses:

In a regular year, you see all those teams regularly. This year we got put in a pool that was super tight, but we didn’t necessarily have a Trinity Western, Alberta or UBC. So we started seeing those teams. It’s a little bit different of a type of volleyball that we have to adjust to, but this program wants to be considered an elite program within the conference and one of the top contenders, so those are the teams we need to see. Those are the teams we need to beat to get there.

McKay on the message to the team entering this weekend:

We were talking a lot about belief. We’re playing some really good volleyball tombs and if you look outside of our program and look elsewhere in the standings or rankings,  we’re going to be lower than those teams. So we’re talking a lot about belief. Belief in ourselves and the ability to pull off wins this weekend. But also belief in the system that we’ve ingrained since the start of the year and that’s to play some high-risk volleyball, so we have the chance to play and beat these types of teams. That comes with plenty of ups and downs, lots of errors, but also lots of successes.

McKay on Mortensen and Varga each receiving conference honours:

“Skyler put in a lot of work. This year was a super hard year to get in on the rookie team because it was two or sometimes even three years of rookies. So he’s punching above his weight there and there’s older guys on that team. So it’s really, really nice for him to be on that team.

“As for Mortensen, he’s being put on teams with the top guys in the country and I think he belongs there. He belongs to be on that first team. I think he did a really good job this season. He put up some awesome numbers and led his team.”