CHARLOTTETOWN - No matter who wins, the CCAA Men's Volleyball National Championship bronze medal will be going to Ontario.

The Niagara Knights came back from one set down to defeat the Red Deer Kings, last year's national champions, in four sets to set up a showdown with their OCAA West rivals, the St. Clair Saints, at 6 p.m. (5 p.m. eastern) at the Centre for Community Engagement.

It's a rematch of the OCAA gold medal match, won in four sets by the Knights on March 1 in Windsor, Ont.

"You put a medal on the line, and both teams are going to play really hard, so we know it's going to be separated by a couple points here and there," said Knights head coach Nathan Groenveld. "Our conference final was tight; I think it was decided by eight to 10 points, so we know it's going to be tight."

Logan Varga (Brantford, Ont.) believes his Knights became more confident from the second set onward.

"Once we started rolling a little bit, we started getting calls in our favour," he said. "We started passing well, our blocking improved a great amount. We were able to capitalize on our chances, and once you do, you start getting more confidence, and it took off from there."

Varga was Niagara's player of the game with 12 kills, four block assists, and three service aces, though they got big contributions throughout the lineup, as Cole Jordan (London, Ont.) had 13 kills and three digs, and Jeff Scott added 11 kills, nine digs, two block assists and a solo block.

Steve Stone (St. Catharines, Ont.) kept the offence together with 42 assists and nine digs.

Niagara was efficient on the attack with 51 kills to just 15 errors, though they committed 18 on serve to Red Deer's nine.

For the Kings, Nic Dubinsky (Calgary) led the attack with 16 kills, seven digs, and three block assists, while Regan Fathers (Adelaide, Australia) had eight kills and 10 digs.

CCAA player of the year Luke Brisbane (Melbourne, Australia) had 32 assists, five digs, three kills, and two service aces to earn player of the game honours for Red Deer, who will not medal for the first time since 2012.

Niagara started out strong, opening with a 6-2 run. However, the Kings didn't let Niagara get any sustained rhythm, clawing back to tie the set 19-19 and forcing Groenveld to call timeout. Red Deer closed the set with four of the last five points to take a tight 25-23 opener.

Red Deer continued its momentum early in the second set, jumping out to a 5-1 lead and forcing Groenveld to again call timeout. It was a smart move, as Niagara went on an 11-4 run shortly thereafter to take control at 15-12. The Kings cut the lead to 21-20, but the Knights took care of business after that to grab the set 25-22.

Momentum shifted a few times in the third set. The Kings got out of the blocks quickly to build a 7-4 advantage, which they eventually extended to 17-12 after Niagara briefly got back to within one point. However, an 11-2 run turned the set in favour of the Knights, and Niagara eventually closed it out at 25-22.

The fourth set was Niagara's from the start, and they didn't let Red Deer get comfortable at all. The Knights jumped out to an 11-4 lead early in the set, and the Kings never found their rhythm offensively, never scoring more than two consecutive points at a time. Niagara put an exclamation mark on the match with a 12-5 run to close out the set and match at 25-13.

Groenveld points to his team's depth as a reason for its ability to close.

"I think we just start to wear on our opponents, and the level at which we play defence when we're engaged is really high," he said. "By the fourth set, their hitters are wondering what they have to do to score, and they get pretty tired."

Looking ahead to tonight's bronze medal match against St. Clair, Varga sees a national medal doing great things for the program.

"We have a lot of guys leaving, but this is going to be something really great that we can use to bring in other players and keep the program and attempt to be one of the strongest programs in the country for a long time."

Championship Website: www.ccaa.ca/national-championship-s15090

Championship Webcast: sportscanada.tv/ccaa/index.php/volleyball/2015mvb

Source: Holland College