WINNIPEG – The No. 3 ranked Trinity Western University Spartans completed a weekend sweep of Winnipeg on the road for the first time in more than 10 years as the Spartans knocked off the No. 6 ranked University of Winnipeg Wesmen in a classic 3-1 (26-24, 30-28, 15-25, 30-28) Canada West regular season battle Saturday afternoon in Winnipeg.

With the win Trinity Western improves their regular season to 20-4 and sees the Spartans become the first team in Canada West history to record back-to-back 20-win seasons. With the loss, Winnipeg ends regular season play sporting a 13-11 record.

With a second place finish in the Canada West standings, the Spartans will host seventh-place Thompson Rivers in a best-of-three quarter-final series at the LEC. Games 1 and 2 will be played Feb. 12th and 13th with Game 3, if necessary, to be played on the 14th.

Fifth-year outside hitter Nicholas Del Bianco (Surrey, B.C.) led the Spartans with a match-high 17 kills and four service aces. Third-year outside Ryan Sclater (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) finished with 13 kills while Blake Scheerhoorn (Belleville, Ont.) led the team in digs with 11.

Middle Daniel Grant (Chetwynd, B.C.) had seven blocks and Winnipeg native Adam Schriemer had 34 assists.

With his blocking effort, Grant tied the Canada West season record for blocks with 136. He equals Alberta's Nathan Bennett, who had 136 blocks in 1999-00.

Del Bianco's serving performance also put him in the record books as his 42 aces this year tied Josh Howatson for the Spartans single season record. Del Bianco's total also places him third in Canada West in the single season record books.

Winnipeg was led by second-year outside hitter David Bommersbach's 16 kills. Fifth-year outside Tom Douglas-Powell and fourth-year middle Brendan Black each had 14 kills. Casey Schouten led the team in digs with 13. Fifth-year middle Matthew Dueck was in on a match high nine blocks.

"It was greasy and I'm not sure how we won when I look at the stats," said Spartans coach Ben Josephson. "We won three deuce sets that we basically stole and then we got blown out in the third. Statistically, it doesn't look like we won the game, but we got timely plays and we got out of there. Our opponents made it hard on us, but we found a way."

In the early stages of the opening set, fans got the sense that both teams were ready for a battle. Neither teams held more than a two point lead in the early part of the opening set. The Spartans got back-to-back kills from Sclater to put them ahead 16-14 at the technical timeout. The teams waged their battle late in the set with the Spartans staring at set point with a 24-22 lead. Winnipeg got a kill by Douglas-Powell on the next play and took advantage of a Spartans attacking error to tie the score at 24-24. A kill by Del Bianco followed by a Wesmen attacking error gave the Spartans the opening set by a score of 26-24.

Winnipeg came out firing ion the second set. The Wesmen opened up an early 8-3 lead and forced the Spartans to take a timeout. The timeout seemed to work as Trinity Western outscored the Wesmen 13-6 to take a 16-14 lead at the technical timeout. Once again the teams battled to extra points all the way to 28-28. The Spartans closed out the set taking advantage of a Winnipeg service error followed by a service ace by Del Bianco to win the set 30-28 and take a 2-0 lead in the match.

In the third set it was all Winnipeg from the start. The Wesmen, needing a set win to stay in the match, raced out to a 16-9 lead at the technical timeout. Winnipeg's power hitters took turns scoring points down the stretch as Winnipeg got back into the match winning the third set by a score of 25-15.

The fourth set was once again a battle. A kill by Del Bianco gave the Spartans a slim 16-15 lead at the technical timeout. Late in the set, Trinity Western had match point staring right at them but a kill by Bommersbach cut the lead to 24-23 and then Winnipeg forced extra points, winning the next play to tie the score at 24-24. The teams exchanged points to 28-28 until two consecutive Wesmen attacking errors gave the Spartans the fourth set by a score of 30-28.

Game Notes: The last time TWU swept Winnipeg on the road was Nov. 12-13, 2004…TWU hit .190 as a team while Winnipeg hit .241…the Wesmen also had a 15.5 to 13 edge in blocks…the last time TWU played TRU in a quarter-final series was in 2011…the Spartans won in two matches to start their march to a CIS title…in Josephson's second year as the TWU head coach, 2008-09, the Spartans lost a three-match series against TRU on home court.

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