SASKATOON, Sask. - In a rematch with the Alberta Golden Bears Saturday afternoon (Oct. 18), the University of Saskatchewan Huskies suffered a straight-sets loss resulting in an opening weekend sweep for the visiting Bears after taking last night's season-opener 3-1. Sets scores were 24-26, 19-25, 14-25.

With the loss, the Huskies fall to 0-2 to open the 2025-26 Canada West season while the Golden Bears improved to 2-0. Offensively, the Huskies were once again led by fourth-year leftside hitter Aaron Elser, who recorded 12 points and 10 kills for the Dogs. For the Bears, Jacob Sargent produced a team-high 13.5 points in the win thanks to 12 kills, an ace, and an assisted block.

Despite the final result, the Huskies got off to a hot start in Saturday's contest, jumping out to a 4-1 lead thanks to a kill from Lucas Musschoot, a service ace from Aaron Elser, and a pair of Alberta attacking errors. As the Golden Bears fought their way back into the game the Huskies maintained the lead and, after some back and forth, found themselves ahead 23-19 late in the set. 

However the Golden Bears refused to go away, taking seven of the next six points to take the opening frame 26-24. The late comeback was led by third-year outside hitter Dylan Martens, who recorded two kills and a block in the 6-1 scoring effort. Martens would go on to finish the match with nine kills and ten points, both second-most on the Bears.

The second set saw Alberta come out with the same intensity they ended the first with and would take the first three points before pulling ahead 10-4 and forcing an early Saskatchewan timeout. The Huskies would battle back to cut the deficit to just two at 13-11 and later one at 17-16 but another late Golden Bear surge would see the visiting team take the set 25-19. 

The highlight of the second set for the Huskies came on their 12th point and saw fourth-year setter Noah Opseth set up Elser for a kill to record his 2,591st career assist, setting a new Huskie porgram record. The previous record of 2,590 had stood for 15 years after being set by former USask student-athlete Cole Hints in the 2009-10 season. For Opseth, he adds yet another record to an impressive career which has already seen the veteran set a new program record for single-season assists two years ago in the 2023-24 season.

The third and ultimately final set of the match saw a dominant performance from Alberta, who led by as many as nine at one point, and completely shut down the Huskie offence. Of the 14 Huskie points in the match, 10 came from Alberta errors at the visiting team took to set 25-14.