Women’s volleyball team ready to make “final push” towards U SPORTS summit, beginning with quarterfinal against MRU

When it comes to nationals, women’s volleyball head coach Ken Bentley is battled tested. The legendary overseer of one of the country’s top programs will participate in his 20th edition this weekend. He’s been to the national final on ten occasions, winning six. He’ll look for a seventh over the next three days in British Columbia. 
 
And while no one on Manitoba’s roster has participated in university nationals, it’s a group that’s “not unfamiliar with the environment.” 
 
Student-athletes such as Light Uchechukwu, Katreena Bentley and Julia Arnold have all won club national championships under the Junior Bisons umbrella, and all three have played in big-time games and in big moments, as has the rest of the roster. 
 
And so, as the team, seeded sixth, prepares for their quarter-final matchup against No. 3 seeded Mount Royal on Friday at 8 pm PT, they are ready (catch all the action at CBC.ca).
 
A demanding summer and gruelling pre-season (that included an arduous trip to Quebec) ended in a 12-1 record with just nine sets lost. It helped the team prepare for what was to come. As the group got into the dog days of the back half of their schedule, they rose up. 
 
When other teams faltered, Manitoba took a step forward, going 8-4 after the winter break. Their mental toughness was put to the test against teams like Saskatchewan and Winnipeg in January and February. 
 
They trailed 22-16 in the third set against the Huskies in game two, and 19-15 to the Wesmen in game two, but battled back to win both sets, and both matches. Then, they promptly went on the road and swept No. 3 UBC in the quarterfinals in two games, rallied from a semi-final loss to MRU and out-last the Wesmen in five last weekend to advance to nationals.
 
“There was a recognition that we had to do more, and we just accepted the reality and the challenge of putting in more work to try and climb the mountain to the top. Now here we are getting close to the summit, and three really tough days to make the final push,” said Bentley. 
 
“We’ve put it in. We repped it out in the summer, we did our weight training without fail, we did all our offseason conditioning and did a really good job of that. We did our individual work outside of practice, and we just stayed in that fight the whole year long. Now we’re reaping the benefits of it. It’s a really good group of every-dayers who just get after it and do a really good job in training.”

‘We’ll go in there fighting, trying to win’
If Manitoba is going to reach the medal round, they’ll need to knock off a Cougars team that’s had their number this year. 
 
In four games, MRU has won 12 of 15 sets, but five have been decided by five points or less. It’s also important to note that both series were hosted in Calgary, whereas this weekend’s tilt will be at War Memorial Gym in BC. 
 
The Herd are comfortable with the facility. Mere weeks ago they walked into UBC’s stomping grounds and swept the 18-win T-Birds in two games. 
 
In the UBC series, conference Rookie of the Year Raya Surinx had a then career-high 23 kills in game two, and 44 on the weekend. She one-upped herself against Winnipeg in the bronze medal game, tallying a personal best 26 on 75 attempts, including the match-winning kill where she challenged a double block and went hard off hands to the left. 
 
Through the playoffs, Surinx leads U SPORTS in kills per set at 5.0 and points per set with 5.6. 

 
But it’s not a one-woman show. Katreena Bentley led Canada West with 10.11 assists per set in the regular season, and she’s added 173 more in the post-season including a career-high 60 against Winnipeg. 
 
Additionally, Ella Gray, Light Uchechukwu, Brenna Bedosky, Eve Catojo and Andi Almonte all had over 100 kills in the regular season, with Gray and Almonte adding 13 and 11 kills, respectively against the Wesmen.
 
Defensively, the team had over 100 combined digs against UW, including a career-high and Canada West five-set best of 35 from Julia Arnold, and 26 more from Almonte. 
 
“[Surinx[ is certainly getting her fair share of attention, but our team is such that if they give her too much attention, we have other people that can really help put the ball away and take that pressure off her. It’s not like she is the only one we can set,” said Bentley. 
 
“That has really helped the rest of our lineup, because the more attention they pay to her, the less attention they pay to Ella, or to Brenna or Eve or Andi. It’s really worked out in our favour in that respect too.”
 
Bentley isn’t worried about his team’s ability to score consistently and play solid defence against the Cougars. Two keys to success will be serve-receive and limiting hitting errors. In the team’s most recent series, the Herd had 44 attacking errors, compared to 23 for MRU. 
 
Of course, Manitoba will also try to negate a Mount Royal roster that includes three Canada West First Team All-Stars in setter Quinn Pelland, outside Haley Roe and middle Nyadholi Thokbuom. That trio combined for 59 kills, 75 assists and nine assisted blocks and will be key to their team’s success. 
 
“I thought we played them pretty tough, but we were just our own worst enemy often enough to lose by three points in two of the three sets. We just have to make sure we’re not getting in our own way too much, really,” reflected Bentley of the team’s playoff series. 
 
“Obviously they’re a really good team, and they’ve had our number to this point, let’s be honest about it. All we can do is do our prep and show up with a blank slate and have a go at it. I certainly know we’ll go in there fighting, trying to win.”