LANGLEY, British Columbia – Led by Brodie Hofer (Langley, B.C.), with 22 kills, the Trinity Western Spartans earned a difficult five set victory over the Manitoba Bisons Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre. The Spartans won the five setter 25-16, 28-26, 23-25, 23-25, 15-8 to sweep the opening weekend series.
 
TWU jumped out to the early two set lead, but Manitoba pushed back to take the next two sets, overcoming a 7-1 deficit in the fourth set, to push the match the distance. The Spartans and Hofer rallied in the fifth set winning 15-8 to take the match.
 
In addition to Hofer, Mathias Elser (Calgary) with 12 kills, three aces and five blocks led the Spartans. While Ben Carleton (Brisbane, AUS) with 17 kills led the Bisons.
 
Anselm Rein (Erfurt, Germany) ran the TWU offence and finished with 42 set assists, while his counterpart with the Bisons Jack Mandryk (Lockport, Man.) finished with 38 set assists.
 
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Adam Schriemer
"I was really happy with our start, I thought that we played pretty clean. But the Manitoba team just never goes away. They battle and they always make you earn all of your points. The third and fourth set were similar to yesterday where we had our opportunities to close out the set, but we just didn't convert. Because of that they got a lot more rhythm. Our serving when it was in play we were pretty good, but when you miss that much it just makes you have to be a lot more productive in all the other phases. It puts a lot of pressure on us to side out and we aren't that crisp offensively yet. So when you miss that many serves you have to side out clean and we didn't do that today."
 
"Getting a win in Canada West is really hard and we are finding that out through the league with all the tough matches. It's hard to beat a good team two day's in a row and I'm proud of the guys for that."
 
NOTABLE
• The Spartans last lost to the Bisons on January 23, 2016 in Winnipeg, when Manitoba defeated TWU 3-0. TWU is currently on a 13 match winning streak against Manitoba.
• The Spartans are 29-21 lifetime against the Bisons.
• Trinity Western defeated Manitoba 3-1 (25-16, 22-25, 25-19, 25-17) Friday night at the LEC.
• TWU hit .274 (51-20-113), while Manitoba hit at .127 (42-28-110).
• The Spartans finished the night with 14 team blocks, while the Bisons finished at eight.
• Trinity Western had 10 service aces, but 29 service errors, while Manitoba finished the night with eight aces and 24 service errors.
 
UP NEXT
The Spartans will travel across the Fraser Valley to take on the Fraser Valley Cascades in Abbotsford, B.C. Game time on Friday night is set for 6 p.m. PT, Saturday's match is set for 5 p.m. PT. Both games can be seen live on CanadaWest.TV.
 
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men's rugby. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 13 U SPORTS team championships and 32 Canada West team championships.
 
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