Golden Bears get uneven win over Bisons

Although the #4-ranked University of Alberta Golden Bears didn't give their most consistent effort of the season, their talents overwhelmed their faults en route to a five-set victory (27-25, 22-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-11) over the #9-ranked University of Manitoba Bisons, late Friday night at the U of A's Main Gym.

The 10-3 Bears were a force to be reckoned with on the block as Alberta stuffed the 5-7 Bisons with 18 total blocks in the game, including six in the first set and three directly from the duo of junior middle Simon Lidster and junior middle/right-side Spencer Leiske.

Leiske also fired six kills in Manitoba's direction in the opening set, finishing it with a tremendous kill off a seemingly endless rally and pushing Alberta's attack percentage to a strong 31.2%.

Yet the Bears hit some error trouble in the second set, hitting a negative attack percentage while the Bisons, who hit for 14.3% in the first set, continued at a 14.7% rate to knot the game at one.
The two squads repeated the same cycle in the third and fourth sets with Alberta capping off a third-set, 46.2% attack rating with a quick attack by Lidster while Manitoba persisted to click at about 15% to grab the fourth set off a Chris Voth kill that ricocheted off Alberta setter Tanner Nault to the roof.

Sophomore left-side Voth finished the night with a team-high 16 kills in the loss, including four of Manitoba's seven kills in the final set before attack errors got the best of them and culminated in another block by Alberta to end the proceedings.

Lacome, AB native Leiske led all players with 21 kills while Calgary native Lidster led all players with five total blocks (10 block assists).

Alberta's Mike DeRocco and Manitoba's TJ Sanders led their respective teams in assists with 48 and 40.

Alberta and Manitoba will finish their weekend series tomorrow with game time going at 6:30 PM MT.

Source:

Alberta Sports Info