Box Score Story by: Sheri Lamb
The Winnipeg Wesmen won their 11th game of the season as they defeated the University of Regina Cougars 3-0 (25-23, 25-14, 25-19) Saturday afternoon at the Duckworth Centre in Winnipeg.
With the win the CIS sixth-ranked Wesmen move to 11-5 in the CIS/Canada West standings, while the Cougars fell to 1-15.
Similar to Friday night the Cougars started strong in the first set and were the first team to hit 20, but the Wesmen woke up and were able to take the first set and then won the next two in much easier fashion to sweep the weekend series without dropping a set.
Wesmen fifth-year setter Josh McKay said the team came out flat against the struggling Cougars and had to work to find the proper energy level to play at in the match.
"We've got to find our own motivation for these kinds of games. These teams are tough to play sometimes because they're not able to play a Top 10 team all the time," said McKay, who had 26 assists and 13 digs in the game. "You've got to take it upon yourself to execute and play at a high level. It's harder to execute [against a lower-caliber team] because they're not throwing over the same balls and it's less intense and they're not banging balls at you. We had to muster up our own sort of energy to get the game going."
At the technical timeout in the first set, the Cougars held a 16-11 advantage over the error-prone Wesmen. But the visitors couldn't hold onto their lead. After the Cougars took a 20-16 lead Josh McKay served up six straight points as the Wesmen rebounded to take a 23-20 lead, going on to the 25-23 win. Brendan Thielmann, David Bommersbach and Taylor Howe all had three kills for the Wesmen in the opening set, while McKay led all defenders with four digs. For the Cougars Brennan Goski had four kills.
"We just weren't executing at a high level throughout the whole first set and we were really fighting it," the 22-year-old McKay. "Once I went back to the service line and got some good contacts going we started execute a little bit better and got some momentum and then did a good job through the rest of the game."
The second set was broken open by the Wesmen when second-year middle Garrett Jones took his turn at the service line as the home team started a run of outscoring the Cougars 12-3 to take a 22-13 lead. The Wesmen won the set 25-14. After two sets Bommersbach had seven kills and five digs for the Wesmen, while Taylor Howe had eight kills and seven digs.
The Wesmen started the third set the way they finished the previous one collecting seven of the first nine points for a 7-2 advantage. But give the Cougars credit as they forced the Wesmen to work for the match win with some nice blocks and kills. The Wesmen eventually took the set 25-19. Bommersbach finished the game with 13 kills, six digs, while Taylor Howe had 10 kills and 10 digs. For the Cougars, Goski finished with eight kills, six digs, while Bronson Busch had seven kills and two digs.
The Wesmen are off next weekend and resume their season Jan. 28 when the Brandon Bobcats visit the Duckworth Centre, 7:30 p.m. Next action for the Cougars is Jan. 22 and 23 when the host Thompson-Rivers University
