Cougars win and advance to first ever playoff appearance
Cary Mellon, UBC Okanagan Heat Sports Information
KELOWNA, B.C - On Senior Night at UBC Okanagan the Heat celebrated the careers of their graduating team members on Saturday. After the ceremony, the inspired Heat men's volleyball squad jumped out to a set one victory, only to have the Mount Royal Cougars, playing for a chance to make the postseason, come back and take the next three sets.
Set Scores: 3-1 (17-25, 25-19, 25-12, 25-19)
The victory and a UBC Thunderbirds loss to the Trinity Western Spartans have levelled Mount Royal's and the T'Birds' records at 13-11, and tied for seventh, the final playoff spot in Canada West. The first tie breaker is sets won/sets lost. The Cougars (47-40) have three fewer set losses, and so hold an advantage over the Thunderbirds (47-44), qualifying the Calgary team for the post season for the first time ever.
Andrew McWilliam was extremely effective. The six-foot-five fifth year led the match with 18 kills, on just 28 swings, and had just a single error giving him a .607 attack rate. The Douglas College transfer spun two aces, had three blocks, and brought up eight digs. Two other Cougars finished with double-digits in kills as
Tyler Schmidt (12 kills) and
Jordan Parkin (10 kills) each reached that benchmark.
Lars Bornemann finished the season strong for the Heat. On Saturday he finished with 14 kills, his fourth straight match with more than 10. The junior outside hitter reached double digits in eight of his last ten matches and totaled 289 over the year, a team high. Bornemann also spun a pair of aces and added three blocks in the match.
The three men's volleyball players graduating from the Heat are libero Jeremy Fostvelt, middle Leo Schober, and right side Kyle Pankratz. Schober finished with six kills (.417) and three blocks. Pankratz had seven kills (.037) and two blocks. Fostvelt played all four sets as the libero and led his team with 10 digs.
For the match Mount Royal hit .270 compared to .174 for UBC Okanagan. The Cougars also out-blocked the home team, 8.5 to 8.
UBC Okanagan took the first set 25-17. The Heat had 14 kills (.423) in the opening frame, led by Lars Bornemann who had five. Mount Royal were led by
Andrew McWilliam, who had four, and earned 11 kills (.161) as a team in the first set.
Mount Royal won the second set 25-19. As a team they had 14 kills (.241) in the set, while they held the Heat to eight (.074). Andrew McWilliam and Tyler Schmidt had the most kills in the frame for the Cougars, with five each, while Devon Cote led the Heat with three in the set.
Mount Royal won the third set 25-12. The Cougars had eight kills (.381) in the set, and were led offensively by
Tyler Schmidt, who had three kills. The Heat had eight kills (.040) as well, led by Kyle Pankratz and Lars Bornemann, who each had three kills.
The fourth set was taken on an Andrew McWilliam kill, as the Cougars grabbed the lead at 6-5 and never looked back, taking the final set 25-19.
The Mount Royal Cougars will play in their Canada West Quarter Finals matches next weekend, as they travel to Winnipeg to face the number 2 seed University of Manitoba Bisons. The season closes on the UBC Okanagan Heat, who finish the year with a 4-18 record.
