The University of Manitoba Bisons handed out its year-end awards on April 1 at the annual Brown and Gold Banquet, held at the Fort Garry campus. Niverville’s Keziah Hoeppner of the women’s volleyball team was the recipient of the Bisons Teammate of the Year award.
Nominated by her teammates Simone Crevier and Ella Gray, Hoeppner was lauded for her mentorship and support all season after suffering a season-ending ACL injury prior to the start of the 2022–23 campaign. She travelled with the team to nationals and was a leader behind the scenes all year.
It’s been a long road for Keziah Hoeppner, who first started playing volleyball at her school in Niverville in Grade Seven and later started playing club volleyball at age 15.
“I never really thought that I was going to play at the university level. It seemed like a cool idea. However, I never reached out to universities or made recruitment videos,” says Hoeppner. “I thought that I would just go to school for academics. So when Bisons’ volleyball coach Ken Bentley asked me to play for the University of Manitoba, I was rather surprised.”
The Niverville High School volleyball program has been competitive for AA provincial athletics, but her greatest preparation for play at the university level came when she started playing club volleyball for the junior Bisons.
“Junior Bisons volleyball is run professionally, and the coaches are very knowledgeable,” says Hoeppner. “In my older years, I played for the assistant coach of the women’s team at the time, Sydney Purvis. She is one of the main reasons why I am here today. She was a great coach and always believed in me.”
In Hoeppner’s three-year tenure with the Bisons, this past season was the first time they made it through the first round of the playoffs and had a chance to go to the USports National Championships. However, because of her ACL injury, she did not play at all this season due to recovering from surgery.
Instead she got to spend the year learning and watching the game from the bench.
“I learnt many new things and broadened my perspective of the game, which will help me out in the coming seasons,” she says. “The team had a great season. We grew so much. I think our team defied everyone’s expectations except our own. It was a very exciting and valuable experience. I think that we stepped up to the challenge and showed people who we are as Bisons.”
The Bisons had to win a hard-fought game against the Winnipeg Wesmen just to make it to nationals. Once the Bisons arrived at nationals, their first game pitted them against Mount Royal, who they had knocked out in the second round of the CanWest playoffs.
The Bisons battled and ended up winning that game, propelling them to the semi-finals, where their run ultimately ended.
Hoeppner was as surprised as anyone to be named the winner of the Teammate of the Year award. It pegs her as the top teammate of the entire University of Manitoba Bisons sports program.
“It was very heartwarming being recognized by my teammates in this way,” she says. “Spending the past year on the sidelines wasn’t easy. However, early on in recovery, I decided to view this as an opportunity to support my teammates and learn the game from them. I spent the year trying to do everything I could to help the team succeed. As much as this award is amazing and nice, I must say there is no way I could have gotten this without the support of my team. They made it easy for me to show up every day and give what I could to the team.”
After overcoming her injury, Hoeppner is very much looking forward to getting back onto the court and contributing to her team’s success.
“After a year off, I can’t wait to play again. I think our team is only getting better as we aren’t losing any players. Our goal is to steadily improve and make our way back to nationals.”