It was a long wait for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s volleyball team, but their Canada West season is in full swing after back-to-back bye weeks to open the year.
Not only did they come out with a strong effort against the visiting Mount Royal Cougars, they stormed onto the court with a two-game sweep.
“It was a lot of pressure with teams already being 4-0,” said Huskies middle blocker Jacob Baird. “Getting those first two wins was really big for us and just proving ourselves in the league.”
Coming off a 16-8 record in regular season play last year, the Huskies qualified for playoffs despite several high-profile graduations from the season prior.
The Huskies would eventually fall to the UBC Thunderbirds in the Canada West quarterfinals. However, they’ve been able to return the majority of their roster in 2024-25.
“Everyone was kind of counting us out last year,” said right side hitter Emmett Graham. “It was like, ‘Oh these Huskies aren’t going to be very good.’ We’ve just rallied, persevered and gotten ourselves back into a position as a top team in this conference.”
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That’s helped the Huskies nail down eighth place in the U Sports national rankings, despite only playing in their two games so far.
Huskies head coach Sean McKay said the team has the potential to chase the program’s fifth Canadian title.
“I think the guys are starting to learn what it means to be a ‘Dog’ more, and more and more,” said McKay. “We’re starting to find our standard. We’re starting to hit that standard a lot more often in practice, bringing a lot more effort, a lot more intent. Doing the things that it’s going to take to win a national championship down the road.”
The road will be long for the Huskies will 18 regular season games left, but McKay added the standard has been raised even from last year.
A group which is embracing an ‘us against the world’ mentality.
“I think often maybe our program is overlooked a little bit, which is OK,” said McKay. “We’ll take that, we don’t mind being a little bit of underdogs. We know what we can achieve if we go as hard as we possibly can and I think that’s becoming more and more clear.”
The Huskies will head out on their first road trip of the season Friday, kicking off a two-game set in Manitoba against the University of Brandon Bobcats.
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