Swept aside by flatlanders

By Dale Miller

The University of Saskatche- wan Huskies brought out their big brooms to sweep the Dinos men’s volleyball team out of the Jack Simpson Gymnasium Jan. 9-10, dropping the volleysaurs to seventh in the country.


"We ran into the best serving team in the conference," commented Head Coach Greg Ryan about the victorious Huskies. "They were really solid."


Hastening the Dinos’ defeat was the absence of Rob Ellis from Saturday’s match. He is a catalyst for the team’s performance and, with five rookies on the roster, they lacked cohesiveness and trust–something the Dinos need to work on if they want to make the playoffs.


Friday’s match saw the only Dinos victory of the weekend when they took the first set. The Huskies quickly bounced back, however, using their superior serving to keep the volleysaurs off balance and winning the match 3-1 (19-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-20).


The Huskies’ strong serving continued to dominate in Saturday’s match with Saskatchewan winning the first and third sets convincingly. Their win was not so convincing in the second set with the Dinos putting up a strong, yet fruitless, fight. The Huskies took the game 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-19).


With these losses, the volleysaurs drop from fourth to seventh place in the nation, but Ryan insists they have what it takes to make it to the postseason.


"If we were getting our brains beaten in every night you could wonder what the hell I was talking about," explains Ryan. "But if you look at our record, we’ve lost a lot of close matches."


This coming weekend, the Volleysaurs travel to Edmonton to face the University of Alberta Golden Bears, who are currently number one in the country.