Most recent print edition: Jul 28

– Last updated: Today

• About Us
• |
• Contact Us
• |
• Advertising
• |
• Submissions

Sports

Calgary Dinos take gold at TCC

Cam Charron - Sports Editor

In the minutes following the University of Calgary’s five-set thrilling upset over the twice-defending champion Alberta Golden Bears, Graham Vigrass was not cooling down with his teammates on the court. He was calmly sitting at a table on the spectator side of the court casually talking with family and friends.

He was asked if that was the biggest win of his career.

“No,” the 6’8” star hitter said, “the next one will be.”

And so it was. The next night, inside the Tournament Capital Centre Sunday night, Graham Vigrass led his team with 16 kills in an effort that saw Calgary defeat Trinity Western in four sets (25-22, 25-21, 23-25, 27-25) to take their first national title since 1993.

Vigrass was named the game’s most valuable player and the tournament’s most valuable player, much to the delight of the small pocket of Dinos fans who had made the trip to Kamloops for the CIS men’s national volleyball championships. They were in for a number against the hundreds of Trinity Spartan faithful, dressed as their Roman namesakes and in the school’s gold and blue colours.

“I thought we came out in the first two sets and really played,” said Dinos head coach Rod Durrant. “We really put some good pressure on them with our block.”

“Sometimes the hitter sees the block and if it was set up well guys will hit it out.”

Leading Calgary’s block throughout the tournament was one Oleg Podporin, the lanky middle from Kazakhstan. He was one of the best players on the court but would be the last to tell you. “I still can’t realize what we just accomplished, this game is still not over,” Podporin said, with the CIS championship banner draped around his neck. “Our whole team, all 16 guys, are really good players.”

Calgary went the hard way to get this title. Friday went as expected until the nightcap game, when, after most of the fans had left, Calgary came back down 0-2 against Dalhousie and took the fifth set 16-14 on an ace by Curtis James.

“We settled down midway through the second set,” Durrant said about that game. “In the third, fourth and fifth set I thought we were better.”

Saturday was when the tournament really came alive. Not only did the sixth-seeded Calgary Dinos knock off the Canada West champion Alberta Golden Bears in five sets, but it was the same day that fourth-seeded Trinity shocked the country with a comeback win against the top-seeded Laval Rouge et Or.

Down 1-2 in sets and 20-23 in the fourth, the Spartans went on a 5-0 run to take the fourth set, helped along by a few Laval errors. In the fifth, where only fifteen are needed, Trinity went up 10-6 on a kill by Marc Howatson before allowing Laval to score four straight points to tie it up at 11.

Back and fourth they went, exchanging match point attempts, before Rudy Verhoeff got his hands on ball hit by Québec MVP Karl de Grandpré and dropped it at the feet of his French Canadian rival. The Spartan faithful stormed the floor.

“I was just hoping I would get another chance to get out there and finish it off,” Verhoeff said. “My teammates obviously played well, I couldn’t do it without them.”

“We knew that some people were going to come up, but we didn’t expect this much, it was amazing,” Verhoeff said about the fans.

Trinity matched up against Queens University in their first game Friday. They easily beat the Golden Gaels with strong defense and serving and won in straight sets. They played against a Laval team who had not played a team West of the Ottawa River since last year’s national tournament in Alberta.

And when they came out against Calgary, a team they beat in the Canada West tournament, they were the higher seed for the first time all weekend. They came out flat, making 31 errors in the first half of the match compared to 15 in the second half, and when they got it together, it was too little, too late.

“We choose to play aggressive, we choose to score the ball, both from the baseline and with our swings,” Trinity head coach Ben Josephson said. “We’re talking about fractions of inches here. The guy touches a finger, it’s out. If he hits a finger, it’s a score. You train your athletes to score points.”

“We had an opportunity tonight, it slipped through our fingers, and that’s heartbreaking.” With silver medals in tow, Trinity can get prepared for next year, where they have an automatic bid into the CIS tournament as hosts. As for Calgary, they have some much-deserved celebrations to get through, starting Sunday night and continuing to the end of the semester.