REGINA, Sask. – The University of Regina's men's volleyball team came out firing with wins in the opening two sets over No. 3-ranked Manitoba, but the Bisons came back to win the next three to take a five-set win (20-25, 23-25, 25-17, 25-22, 15-10) over the Cougars on Saturday night at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

With the road win, Manitoba improves to 10-2 while Regina drops to 1-11 in the Canada West conference standings.

The first two sets were back-and-forth affairs with a total of 23 tie scores and nine lead changes, but the hometown Cougars came out ahead both times with a 25-20 win in the first set and a 25-23 win in the second which was capped by a big block by Andre Borgeaud and Bronson Busch.

But Manitoba came right back in a convincing third-set victory, hitting .615 as a team in their 25-17 win. The Bisons led for much of the fourth but had to stave off a big 6-1 run by the Cougars that turned a five-point Manitoba lead into a 20-20 score. But the Bisons scored four of the next five points on their way to a 25-22 win to force a deciding set, which they led from wire to wire and put an end to the upset bid with a 15-10 win in the fifth.

Devren Dear piled up 22 kills and 12 digs for Manitoba, which improves to 10-2 with the win. Luke Herr had to switch from his familiar No. 2 jersey to No. 16 midway through the third set after suffering a minor gash, but finished with 53 assists and a match-high 14 digs for the Bisons. Adam DeJonckheere added 15 kills, while Ken Rooney had seven kills, seven digs, and eight blocks in the win and Josh Crellin came off the bench to put down seven kills while hitting at a .700 clip.

Brad Millers had a career-high 13 kills for the Cougars and led the team with a .556 hitting percentage, while Dalton Wolfe played essentially the entire match at setter and finished with 50 assists. Matthew Lueck led the Cougars with 15 kills while hitting at .306 for the match.

Both teams will resume Canada West play in January.