WOLFPACK MVB PREPARE FOR BRANDON IN CANADA WEST FINAL FOUR
(Behlul Yavasgel will be out of the lineup this weekend vs Brandon)
For immediate Release: February 16, 2009
Kamloops, BC—Hot on the heels of their upset of the Trinity Western Spartans, Pat Hennelly and his Thompson Rivers University WolfPack are looking at knocking off another higher ranked seed as the Canada West Men’s Volleyball Final Four begins Friday night (Feb 20) at the University of Alberta Education Center. Their opponents in the league semi final are the Brandon Bobcats.
The WolfPack (10-8 in the regular season) are coming off a hard fought best of 3 series with Trinity Western last weekend. Brandon (10-8 as well in the regular campaign) swept the UBC Thunderbirds (winning 3-0 and 3-2).
“We’ve had some success against Brandon this year,” said Hennelly referring to his teams weekend sweep of the Bobcats on January 16 and 17 th (scores 3-0 and 3-1). “But on the flip side, there is only so many times you can beat a great team like Brandon. They have a probable All-Canadian this year in Paul Sanderson(3rd year, left side, Melbourne, Austrailia), it’ll be hard to contain him.. They are a great team. I respect their program a lot. Beating UBC two in a row—they were the only team to sweep in the quarterfinals. Barring their matches here, they’ve had a pretty good second semester.”
Hennelly says he’s happy to be in the final four but has a lot of respect for the game Brandon will bring to Edmonton. That aside, the WolfPack have history on their side: winning five of the six times the two teamasd have played in the regular season and sweeping the Bobcats in the CW quarters a year ago.
The Bobcats have a dangerous line up. They have four of the top six hitters in the post season. Joel Small(4th year, middle, Brandon, Man) leads with a percentage of .633. Paul Robideaux (3rd year, left side, Winnipeg, Man) is third at .469 with Kevin Miller (3rd year, left side, Russell, Man) fifth at .390 and Sanderson sixth at .365. Sandersons 40 kills last weekend puts him second in the Canada West . Robin Schoebel (3rd year, outside hitter, Monaco) is fourth at 4.21.
The Bobcats also feature the top assist getter in the Canada West. Andrew Korol (5th year, setter, East Selkirk, Man) had 99 in eight games last week for a percentage of 12.38 per game. That compares with TRU’s Colin Jaggard (4 th year, setter, Calgary, Alta) at 10.36.
The WolfPack needed to go the full five sets to win both their matches against Trinity. Hennelly admits his team is a bit taxed mentally.
“If anyone saw our last match here against Brandon knows the emotion that they will bring to the game. I hope we will be ready.”
What about playing at a neutral site? “ I don’t think any team has an advantage,” Hennelly says. “It’ll be a true match of what both teams have talent wise. Brandon might be at a slight disadvantage since they have to travel further. Neither team will be able to tap into the fans for emotions. There will be a lot of intensity. I hope our guys can muster up the emotion and intensity to battle Brandon after our ‘knock down, drag ‘em out battle’ with Trinity.”
Hennelly reflects on the weekend series with the Bobcats at TRU in January, where his team expended so much emotion that they had a hard time practicing the following week. He hopes that it doesn’t happen again this time around.
The WolfPack will have one of their regulars on the sidelines. 4 th year outside hitter Behlul Yavasgel (Aydin, Turkey) is expected to not dress this weekend. He suffered an upper body injury in the Trinity series and will likely be rested for the CIS Nationals which begin in Edmonton the following week.
With all four of this weekends Canada West teams garnering a berth to Nationals, will it be more difficult for the coaches to get their players to focus on the task at hand rather than look ahead to Nationals?. “It will be very difficult,“ he says. “ What the biggest problem is that a number of players will be looking ahead to the match ups at the CIS rather than this weekend. I’m telling our guys not to sit at home and hypothesize about who we are going to play and what the match ups are. This is playoffs and you have to take what you get. Teams that spend a lot of energy worrying about who they are going to play and the match ups will put them at a disadvantage. Ontario and Quebec haven’t even determined who their reps will be. “
Hennelly does say that the extra week the Canada West teams get to spend in Edmonton will alleviate a lot of the anxiety which goes along with playing in a strange city.
The WolfPack take on Brandon in the second match of the day on Friday (Feb 20) at 8pm MST. Winnipeg plays defending CIS and Canada West Champion Alberta in the first match at 630 pm MST. The bronze medal match is set for Saturday (Feb 21) at 630 pm MST with the gold medal match beginning at 8 pm MST.