Courtesy: TWU sports information / Photo credit
Scott Stewart
LANGLEY, B.C. (CIS) – The second-seeded Laval Rouge et Or
made short work of their CIS quarter-final match against the No. 7
New Brunswick Varsity Reds taking the game in straight sets (25-18,
25-14, 27-25) at the Langley Events Centre, Friday afternoon.
Championship website (including complete stats): http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/mvball
Led by fifth-year senior Frédéric Desbiens, who had a game-high 12 kills, and first-team all-Canadian and Quebec MVP Karl De Grandpré, the RSEQ champion Rouge et Or never gave the AUS champions a chance in the tournament opener.
After failing to advance to the national semifinals for six straight years from 2003 to 2008, Laval will play in the Final Four for a third consecutive season. The Rouge et Or, CIS finalists in 2009 and fourth-place finishers a year ago, will face either No. 3 Brandon or No. 6 McMaster Saturday at 6 p.m. PST in the early semi.
“We were well prepared and ready for a tough match,” said Laval coach Pascal Clément, whose team improved to 25-0 overall against CIS opponents in 2010-11 including a 4-0 mark versus UNB. “The guys started very steady at the beginning of the match and New Brunswick was a little more nervous. As soon as they had nothing to lose they started to play and they changed their rhythm of their setter and I don’t think we reacted properly. But that’s okay. It’s behind us now. We can enjoy the first win and look to the second round.”
Making their 14th consecutive CIS championship appearance and their 27th in 30 years, the Rouge et Or showed their maturity and experience over a UNB squad making just its second appearance since 1979, two years after a seventh-place finish in Edmonton.
“I think at the beginning of the match it helped,” Clément said of his team’s national championship experience. “In the way we focused and the way we applied the game plan and we can see that we executed properly and much better than New Brunswick did.”
The Laval Rouge et Or got off to a fast start as they raced out to a 5-1 lead and immediately took control of the game and the match’s momentum.
From there, with Laval relying on a strong defensive surge – one that saw them hold UNB to 5.6 per cent attacking and register three team blocks in the set – the Rouge et Or never let up. The higher seeded Rouge et Or methodically extended their lead to 13-5 and then 22-11 before finalizing the contest with a savvy dump kill from second-team all-Canadian Justin Boudreault that gave Laval a 25-18 win.
After going much of the set without collecting back-to-back points, the Varsity Reds did manage to go on a late-game 6-0 run to get the contest to within five points at 22-17. But the deficit was too large for UNB to contest as Laval replied with a 3-1 run to take opening set of their CIS tournament.
The second frame started similar to that of the first with Laval taking an early lead and quickly turning it into a stranglehold advantage. The Rouge et Or took an 8-3 lead into the first technical timeout – with Karl De Grandpre leading the charge with three kills – and simply rolled to victory from there.
Like the first set, UNB was unable to earn consecutive points until Laval had already hit 21 points. The Varsity Reds got three points in a row to close the gap to 21-12 but the Rouge et Or responded with a 4-2 run to close out the set at 25-14.
The Varsity Reds were plagued by errors as they had 15 attack errors and seven serving errors after just two sets.
“I was just disappointed in the fact it took two sets for us to get going,” said UNB coach Dan McMorran. “Right from the beginning it was a case of non-execution for us. We knew we were up against a tough team in Laval…and we knew we had to play really good ball to stay in the battle against them and we just didn’t give ourselves the opportunity in the first couple of sets to get going.”
In the third set, the game play changed drastically but the result did not.
With setter Andrew Costa coming in to replace Stephane Fontaine, UNB hung with Laval the whole way, leading at the first technical timeout 8-7 and the second technical timeout 16-15. But the final score still had Laval on top as the Rouge et Or completed its sweep with a block from De Grandpre on Dale Iwanoczko Award winner Jacob Kilpatrick to win 27-25.
The Varsity Reds did have a chance to win the set at 25-24 but were unable to finish the Rouge et Or off as the veteran Laval squad fought back with three straight points.
After Desbiens’ 12 kills, Laval was led by De Grandpre, who finished with seven kills while libero Pierre-Alexis Lapointe had seven digs and was impressive all game.
For UNB, it was Julio Fernandez leading his team with 10 kills
while both Stephane Fontaine and Andrew Costa each had 14
assists.
The Varsity Reds will play in the consolation semifinal against
either McMaster or Brandon Saturday at 1:00 p.m.
STAT
LEADERS
Laval
Kills: Frederic Desbiens (12), Karl De Grandpre (7), Frederic
Mondou (6), Jeremie Lortie (6)
Points: Frederic Desbiens (13), Karl De Grandpre (10)
Blocks: Karl De Grandpre (4), Jeremie Lortie (4)
Digs: Frederic Mondou (9), Justin Boudreault (9)
Service aces: Frederic Mondou (1), Justin Boudreault (1)
Assists: Justin Boudreault (28)
Player of the match: Justin Boudreault
UNB
Kills: Julio Fernandez (10), Matt Sweet (7), Tyler Veenhuis (6)
Points: Julio Fernandez (10)
Blocks: Tyler Veenhuis (3), Jacob Kilpatrick (3)
Digs: Kyle Banchard (11)
Service aces: Stephane Fontaine (2)
Assists: Stephane Fontaine (14), Andrew Costa (14)
Player of the match: Jacob Kilpatrick
SCHEDULE &
RESULTS (all times LOCAL: Pacific Time)
NOTE: Live webcast of all matches at http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/mvball
Friday, March 4
Quarter-final #1: Laval 3, UNB 0 (25-18, 25-14, 27-25)
15:00 Quarter-final #2: No. 3 Brandon vs. No. 6 McMaster
18:00 Quarter-final #3: No. 4 Trinity Western vs. No. 5 Alberta
20:00 Quarter-final #4: No. 1 Calgary vs. No. 8 Sherbrooke
Saturday, March 5
13:00 Consolation #1: UNB vs. Loser QF #2
15:00 Consolation #2: Loser QF #3 vs. Loser QF #4
18:00 Semi-final #1: Laval vs. Winner QF #2
20:00 Semi-final #2: Winner QF #3 vs. Winner QF #4
Sunday, March 6
12:00 5th place
15:00 Bronze medal
18:00 Championship final
-CIS-