Mariners Host Bearcats

#4 CBC Bearcats vs. #1 VIU Mariners – Friday February 21, 5:30pm | WATCH HERE

The atmosphere will be electric on Friday night when the top seeded Mariners (19-1) face the fourth seeded Bearcats (8-12) in a women’s PACWEST semi-final at VIU.

Over the course of their four meetings in the regular season, the Mariners won all four and didn’t drop a set.   They earned three-set sweeps in both November and January but did need extra points in two of the sets this year.

Coming into the postseason the Mariners have won 17 in a row, 11 of those in a three-set sweep.  On the other side, the Bearcats caught fire down the stretch and got into the playoffs winning four of their last five matches to leap into the final playoff spot.

The Bearcats front row will need to find a way to slow down the likes of Aimee Skinner and Emma Schill which has proven to be a difficult task for all PACWEST schools this season.  Even if Skinner and Schill have an off match, Megan Duffy, Regan Ingram and Grace Brisebois can pick up the production numbers when needed.  It’ll be a tall task, but the Bearcats have been strong as of late.  Nicole Reid, Makayla Friesen and Kiana Wiebe all finished on the PACWEST offensive leaderboard and are clicking coming into the postseason.

It’s been a while since these two programs met in the playoffs.  It’s been 12 years since their last meeting when the Bearcats beat the Mariners in a semi-final in 2013 in five sets and went onto win a Conference silver medal.  The season prior to that (2012), the Mariners swept the Bearcats in three-sets in a semi and eventually won PACWEST gold.

The winner advances to the PACWEST championship match on Saturday night while the loser will play for bronze on Saturday afternoon.