Bears hope to be golden on home court
Things are looking mighty familiar to the University of Alberta Golden Bears as they host the 2017 U Sports FOG men’s volleyball nationals this weekend.
Not only are they hosting the championship tournament at the Saville Community Sports Centre from Friday to Sunday, but half of the eight-team field is made up of schools from their dominant Canada West Conference.
“Last year, with two Canada West teams medalling, us hosting and a champion, that gave us four through the wild-card process,” said Bears head coach Terry Danyluk, whose seventh-seeded squad faces the second-ranked University of Manitoba Bisons on Friday at 6:30 p.m.
The conference is also represented by the top-ranked Trinity Western University Spartans — the defending national champions coming off Canada West gold last weekend — and the No. 3 seed University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, who beat the Bears in the conference bronze-medal final.
The top out-of-conference team is the Universite Laval Rouge et Or at No. 4, followed by the McMaster University Marauders and the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds.
The only squad seeded lower than the host Bears are the University of Waterloo Warriors in eighth.
But Danyluk hasn’t exactly lost sleep over their pre-tourney placing, despite last week’s Final Four not going according to plan with a five-set loss to the Spartans.
“We had our chances, we were up 2-0 and they made a lineup change that allowed them to be a little bit better in parts of the game,” said Danyluk, whose Bears won national bronze a season ago. “In the fourth set, we had a swing for the match and we couldn’t put the ball away.
“And they played extremely well in the fifth and final game and put the pressure on us. The next day, we didn’t show up to play against UBC, which was too bad. Either way, we had to play somebody this weekend. It changes the dynamics of this tournament a little bit, but at the same time, we’ve got to beat everybody. We’re here, we’re playing at home and I think our guys are really excited to play this weekend.”
The last time the Bears hosted nationals was during the memorable 2008-09 season, which saw the home side cap a perfect 22-0 regular-season record with their final championship inside the old Main Gym at the Van Vliet Centre. BEAR TRACKS: Pandas volleyball is looking for its eighth U Sports championship as the top seed at women’s nationals, as they prepare to face the host Ryerson University Rams on Friday (4 p.m.), after vaulting to a 22-2 regular-season record on the way to winning Canada West gold last week.
“There’s no magic pill for it, you’ve just got to do the dirty work and do the hard work and this team has done that,” said Pandas head coach Laurie Eisler, who was named Canada West coach of the year. “They’ve done absolutely everything asked of them and beyond.”