In front of a pumped up and standing room only crowd at the Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) Les Rouges in Winnipeg, the 2023 Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference (MCAC) Volleyball Championship day finished with a great performance by both women teams.
The #1 seed Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) Les Rouges defeated the #2 seed Providence University College (PUC) Pilots in a five set thriller (21-25, 26-24, 21-25, 25-22, 15-12) at the 2023 MCAC Women’s Volleyball Championship Final on Sunday, February 26.
What a match as a back and forth affair with the top seed Les Rouges (14-4 regular season record; 2-0 playoffs) finding a way to a hard fought victory. This was the first time in their season meetings that went the distance.
“We had to prove ourselves. We had a ton of experience from last year and our approach in the second of half of this season was ‘win one battle at a time'” commented USB’s head coach Evan Turenne. “This culture of our team is so much self belief and the whole team supports each other.”
The match changed in the fourth as PUC led 9-2 and looked poised to secure a first MCAC title since 2018 but it was not to be. PUC’s head coach and 2022-23 MCAC Coach of the Year Kyle Guenther said, “I thought we had them. It was a combination of USB being a great team and so hard to play against. When the pressure mounted, we started to get tentative while they stayed the course.”
USB righted the ship with a serve run to close to gap to two and then battle and closed out the fourth with some timely hits and rode the momentum and loud crowd support into the fifth where they did not trail once.
Turenne stated afterwards, “Providence played a great game and I thought they had us in the fourth. We talked in the timeout of having too much pride and make them earn it.”
Championship MVP was USB’s second year left side Valeria Gonzalez. She enthused, “We have been thru five sets in the past and that helped us this year. I felt confident we could pull it out in a fifth set. I think for our team, we like the pressure and it was so cool and amazing to play in front of our hometown fans and family to win this again!”
The first set was close as tied at 20 when Providence (9-9 regular season record; 1-1 playoffs) went ahead to stay in a 25-21 win. The second set was even closer. The Pilots led most of the way with Les Rouges tying the match at 14 and again at 23, before scoring the winning points at 26-24. In the third, the score was tied at 10 when PUC went ahead to stay. They maintained a three point lead through to a second 25-21 set score of the day before the crucial fourth and fifth sets commenced.
With the conference championship, USB repeats as conference championship winners and claims their fifth overall title in program’s history (2001, 2002, 2003, 2022 and now 2023).
In addition, Les Rouges now advances as the MCAC representative to the 2023 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Women’s Volleyball National Championship hosted by Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, BC from March 8-11.
“I believe in this team. We have the potential at Nationals as we know what it takes after experiencing it last year,” said Gonzales.
2023 MCAC Women’s Volleyball Championship
Hosted by: Université de Saint-Boniface (USB); Central Time listed
Saturday, February 25
4 p.m. Semi Final: #1 USB Les Rouges 3 #4 ACC Cougars 1
6 p.m. Semi Final: #2 PUC Pilots 3 #3 CMU Blazers 0
Sunday, February 26
3 p.m. Women’s Championship Final: #1 USB Les Rouges 3 vs. #2 PUC Pilots 2
– with notes from Resby Coutts