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Heat finish third, host Bisons in playoffs

UBCO women’s volleyball team home to Manitoba this weekend in best-of-three Canada West quarters
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Ann Richards, Sara McCready, Erin Drew and the UBC Okanagan Heat will host Manitoba Friday to kick off the Canada West playoffs. -Image: UBC Okanagan Heat athletics

Coming off one of the best regular seasons in their Canada West history, the UBC Okanagan Heat will be looking to carry that momentum into the playoffs.

Steve Manuel’s team will host the Manitoba Bisons in a best-of-three Canada West women’s volleyball quarterfinal series beginning Friday night at the Kelowna campus. First serve is 6 p.m.

The second match will be played Saturday at UBCO at 5 p.m., with a third, if necessary, to go Sunday at 4 p.m.

It’s the second straight time the teams will meet. The Heat and Bisons split a pair of matches over the weekend in Winnipeg to close of the regular campaign.

UBCO finished with a 19-5 record, good for third in Canada West and just a game back of UBC. Manitoba placed sixth at 12-12.

On Friday, Michelle Jakszuk led all hitters with a career-high 20 kills as the Heat prevailed 3-1 (25-17, 25-20, 11-25, 25-18).

Sara McCreary had 44 assists, while Jakszuk led the way defensivelywith 16 digs.

On Saturday, the Bisons ended UBCO’s 11-game winning streak, upsetting the Heat 3-1 (23-25, 29-27, 25-18, 25-18).

Three graduating UBC Okanagan players compiled their final Canada West regular season stats:

Erin Drew (RSS) played 85 matches, delivering 302 kills, 85 aces, 245 blocks.

Siobhan Fitzpatrick (Immaculata High) played in 75 matches, had 548 kills, 472 digs, and 641 points.

Michelle Jakszuk (Elphinstone Secondary) played in 106 matches, earning 584 kills, 503 digs, 200 blocks and 734.5 points.

Heat men

While the UBC Okanagan men came up short on their final weekend of the season, Lars Bornemann set a new Heat career record for kills.

Bornemann finished with weekend with 1,275 kills, surpassing the former standard of 1,260 held by Nate Speijer.

On Friday, the Bisons swept the Heat 3-0 (25-18, 25-18, 25-15).

On Saturday, a similar result saw Manitoba take it the match in three (25-21, 25-13, 25-20)

Bornemann finished up with 591 career digs and 1475.5 points, playing in a school record 118 matches and 426 sets.

Joshua Harvey wrapped up his career with 100 matches played in which he totaled 447 kills at an impressively efficient .309 attack rate, and 663.5 points. Of his 300 career blocks 61 of them were of the solo variety.

The Heat finished the 2017-18 season at 5-19.