BRANDON - The Brandon Bobcats dropped a straight sets decision against the visiting Mount Royal Cougars on Friday night at the Healthy Living Centre in Canada West men's volleyball action.
 
The set scores were 25-23, 25-19 and 25-15.
 
Mount Royal got on a roll in the first set and led 16-10 at the technical timeout.
 
The Cougars continued to push the pace and led 23-20, before the Bobcats put on a late surge and tied the opening set 23-23.
 
Mount Royal then recorded back-to-back points to draw first blood in the conference match.
 
The second set mirrored the first with the Cougars taking command early 5-1.
 
The Bobcats battled back to tie the second set 14-14 and held a 16-14 lead at the technical timeout.
 
After the break, Mount Royal regained momentum and went on an 11-3 run to close out the set and grab a two-nothing lead in the match.
 
The Cougars' confidence continued to grow in the third as Mount Royal rolled to a 9-1 advantage to start the set and went up 16-5 at the technical timeout.
 
Brandon trimmed the deficit to seven points late in the third, but the gap got no closer and the Cougars completed the sweep.
 
BU captain Roy Ching collected 11 kills and seven digs as the Bobcats slipped to 5-and-14 on the season.
 
David Stasica had 21 assists, while James Weir was involved in four blocks for Brandon.
 
"I feel like we had lapses at the start of each set that really made it hard for us to rally back," said Ching. "We had some good runs towards the ends of sets, but we did not have a good enough start to get to 25 first."
 
Meanwhile, Tyler Schmidt and Jordan Parkin paced the Cougars' offence with 13 kills apiece.
 
Andrew McWilliam was next with 11 kills as Mount Royal improved to 9-and-10.
 
Tanner Greves got 26 assists, while Jonathan Phillips had 10 digs for the Cougars, both were match highs.
 
The Bobcats and Cougars conclude their weekend series with Saturday's rematch set for 6:45 p.m (CST).