EDMONTON — The University of Saskatchewan Huskies men's volleyball team stormed into Edmonton and came away with an important win over the No. 6 ranked Alberta Golden Bears by a score of 3-2 (22-25, 25-20, 25-18, 15-25, 16-14), Friday night at the Saville Community Sports Centre.

Saskatchewan improves to 9-8 on the year and are in a tight fight for playoff positioning, currently holding on to fifth in the Canada West. The Bears meanwhile fell to 12-5 and have lost four of their last five.
 
"It's a big two points in the standings. It's a dogfight for the fifth to eighth spot in the standings and these two points are valuable," said Huskies first-year head coach Nathan Bennett.
 
"I was a former Golden Bear, and I knew they were going to fight back and battle and they did and it was a testament for our guys for staying in the battle."

Third-year outside hitter Taryq Sani had a season-high 22 kills to lead Alberta, while sophomore outside hitter Dylan Mortensen led Saskatchewan with 17 kills.

After taking the first set, the Bears looked well on their way to a second-set victory, but a combination of service errors and mistakes around the net gave Saskatchewan life and they went on a 6-1 run to take the second set.

The uncharacteristic mistakes continued to haunt Alberta in the third set. After Saskatchewan tied it at 15-15, they went on a big 10-3 run to close out the set.

Saskatchewan showed poise having given up the 2-1 lead and fighting back to take the fifth set. They were down 4-1 early, and battled back to take an 8-7 lead before Alberta regained another lead before Saskatchewan rallied to close out the set.

"I couldn't be more proud of everyone on our team tonight," said Bennett. "It was a complete team effort and team win."

Alberta and Saskatchewan will continue their two-game weekend series Saturday night at approximately 7:30 p.m.