Wesmen in fine form, capture second straight Classic crown

The Winnipeg Wesmen skipped the theatrics on Tuesday afternoon.

Less than 24 hours after a nailbiting comeback victory in a semifinal match, the Wesmen women's volleyball team looked dominant once again and captured the 58th Wesmen Classic with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-23, 26-24) win over the Ottawa Gee-Gees at the Duckworth Centre. 

It was the second time in as many tries that the Wesmen won the women's volleyball event at the Classic, repeating the feat of the 2019 squad that one it in the inaugural year of women's volleyball being featured in the holiday tournament. 

And while the Wesmen survived the semifinal, they were certainly the aggressors in the gold-medal match, besting an Ottawa side that was impressive in a straight-sets win over Manitoba in a semifinal a day earlier. 

The Wesmen held Ottawa to -.161 attacking in the first set and .058 for the match while hitting no worse than .227 in a set themselves. They finished .245 for the day with just 15 attack errors on more than 100 swings. 

Brooke Duncalfe led the way with 12 kills for the Wesmen, who finished the tournament 5-0. Emily Lavallee, named the U of W player of the game, had seven kills on 11 swings and hit .545 with three blocks and an ace. Grace Vallis also had seven kills and three blocks as the Winnipeg middles rendered their Ottawa counterparts ineffective and helped quiet the Gee-Gees outside attacks as well.

Audrey Odigie, a two-time first-team conference all-star and the Gee-Gees' player of the game, had 19 kills and 17 digs, but no other Ottawa player mustered more than four kills and four players hit in the negatives. 

The match was capped by a stuff block from freshman outside Anna Filippin-Buller on Odigie. 

The Wesmen return to action Jan. 9-10 when they host the MacEwan Griffins to resume Canada West conference play.