Men's Volleyball Huskies clinch first in ACAC North, perfect home record with wins over Trojans, Broncos

The Keyano Huskies Men's Volleyball team continued to roll into fine form over the weekend, closing out their regular season with a pair of home wins against South Division opponents.  

Friday, the Huskies dispatched the SAIT Trojans by a 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 29-27) score and followed it up with a 3-1 (25-15, 25-23, 19-25, 25-23 ) win over the Olds College Broncos, the Huskies' first-round matchup at the upcoming 2024 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Men's Volleyball Championship. 

"Starting with SAIT, they're kind of a dangerous team in terms of they really didn't have much to play for so sometimes when you're playing teams that just can go out there and do whatever they want, you kind of saw a little bit of that come out," Kuhr said.

"We got a little lucky in that third set. It was nice to get that done and it was nice to take care of Olds at home. They're obviously our quarterfinal matchup, so it's nice to get this one for the confidence moving forward."

The Broncos, this year's Men's Volleyball Championship hosts, gave the Huskies some trouble throughout Saturday's match, taking a set off the Huskies and having the second and fourth sets go down to the wire.  

Ready for a battle between the two sides in two weeks time, Kuhr knows his side is up against a formidable opponent in their own arena.

"It's going to be two good teams," Kuhr added. "I know we're going in as the one seed, they're going in as the four seed, but the volleyball this year across the league has been really good and it's going to be no exception.

"We're going into their barn, they're going to have a good crowd, they're well-coached so we're going to need to bring exactly what we brought tonight only into a hostile environment."

Everything rolled as it should for the Huskies individually. A 26-kill performance from Rafael Parada led the way while Athus Silva wasn't far behind with 21 kills off his own. Silva topped the charts with nine blocks, one ahead of teammate Preston Yole. Anderson King added 24 digs and Noah Gagne tallied 75 assists while handling setting duties in both matches.

"Rafael was really good," Kuhr continued. "Nathan [Luken], we had to up his volume and he stepped up. Athus was really good as well. Kaylen filled his role as well.

"I'm really happy with the way our lineup performed this and I look forward to continuing to build off what we can in these next seven days before we head to Olds."  

While that quarterfinal matchup is still 10 days away, there's accolades for the Huskies in the interim.

A 16-3 regular season gave them a .842 winning percentage, slightly higher than the last time they surpassed 16 wins with a 19-5 (.791) record in 2019-20. They also put together a perfect 10-0 record at home and clinched the top spot in the ACAC's North Division.