LANGLEY, British Columbia – The No. 10 Trinity Western men's volleyball team forced No. 2 Alberta to play a fourth set for just the third time this year but, in the end, the Bears still remained unbeaten on the season as the conference-leaders won 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-14, 25-22) Friday at the Langley Events Centre.

In a rematch of last year's CIS championship gold medal match, the Bears (13-0) bounced back from a second set loss to win the third set convincingly before edging TWU in the fourth on route to victory. Alberta beat TWU in three sets in last year's national final.

With an impressive defensive night that saw Alberta collect 55 digs, the Bears won their sixth straight match against TWU.

Despite the loss, the Spartans (8-5) join Thompson Rivers and Manitoba as the only teams to take a set from Alberta this season.

Alberta's Ryan Nickifor led the Bears with 15 kills while Ryley Barnes added 13 kills and Tayler Arnett had 11. Arnett, who didn't commit a single attacking error, also had a team-high seven blocks. Setter Brett Walsh had 48 assists and a match-high 14 digs.

The Spartans Ryan Sclater (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) had a team-high 14 kills while Blake Scheerhoorn (Belleville, Ont.) had 12 kills. First-year middle Pearson Eshenko (Banff, Alta.) had a career-high eight blocks. Setter Devyn Plett (Winnipeg) had 36 assists.

As a team, TWU hit .210 while Alberta hit .295.

"It was a good first game of the semester for us," said Spartans coach Ben Josephson. "But I hope the guys are restless in their beds tonight because they had a lot of chances to score a lot more points. With that being said, I thought we played really well. The difference was their digging was fantastic and they held us to just 10 kills at set. That's a credit to how well they played. Fifty-five digs is insane.

After struggling to find their blocking rhythm in the first semester, the Spartans had 15.5 blocks and the Bears had 11.

"We were one of the worst blocking teams in the conference last semester and we had a pretty decent blocking performance against the best offence in the conference," Josephson said. "Some of that is they were a bit rusty…but the fact that we were on some balls is a good sign."

Hitting .469 as a team, the Bears took the first set 25-22 after completing a late rally. The Spartans took a 15-11 lead only to see Alberta claw back and tie the set 16-16. With the score even 21-21, Alberta pulled away with four of the last five points to win by three.

In the second set, the Bears initially opened up a 13-10 lead, but the Spartans roared back to even the set 13-13 and force a back-and-forth the rest of the way. With the set tied 20-20, TWU opened a three-point lead with a 4-1 run that ultimately set up the chance for Scheerhoorn to put away the winning kill at 25-22.

Alberta responded with a strong third set in which the Bears took an early lead and won convincingly 25-14. John Goranson had a team-high four kills to lead Alberta as they ran away with the set late.

In the fourth set, the Bears once again took a lead early, going up 13-10. The Spartans hung around, but never evened the set. TWU was within two points late but, with Alberta up 24-22, a Spartans serving error put the game to bed.

The two teams will meet again Saturday at 7 p.m.

Game Notes: The last time the Spartans beat Alberta was when they swept the Bears on home court in a regular season weekend Nov. 8-9, 2013 (3-1 and 3-0)…Going back to last year's regular season and playoffs, the Bears have won 21 straight CIS matches…Alberta is 37-8 all-time against TWU in Canada West league play.  

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