AROUND OUA: No. 1 Mac drops first set to No. 8 Gaels, wins in four
Living up to their billing as the no. 8 seed in the country and the second-placed team in the OUA, the Queen's Gaels gave the nation's best all they could handle on Friday. Queen's won the opening set – the first frame Mac had dropped in OUA play since their season opener on October 23 – before McMaster found their form and completed a four-set victory at the Burridge Gym.
SCOREBOARD
Waterloo 3 @ Windsor 0
No. 1 Mac drops first set to No. 8 Gaels, wins in four
Living up to their billing as the no. 8 seed in the country and the second-placed team in the OUA, the Queen's Gaels gave the nation's best all they could handle on Friday. Queen's won the opening set – the first frame Mac had dropped in OUA play since their season opener on October 23 – before McMaster found their form and completed a four-set victory at the Burridge Gym.
Set scores were 25-27, 25-21, 25-16 and 28-26 in favour of the Marauders, who improved to 12-0 atop the OUA standings and stretched their lead over the Gaels to eight points with the victory. Queen's fell to 8-3, but do enjoy a game in hand over McMaster.
Stephen Maar's fantastic season continued in the win, as the fourth-year outside hitter posted a game-high 27.5 points, including 25 kills on 40 attempts versus six errors (.475), an ace and a block and a half. Fellow outsides Jayson McCarthy (17) and Andrew Richards (14) also reached double digits in the point column, while setter Andrew Kocur had 36 assists. Marauder libero Pawel Jedrzejewski led the match with 13 digs.
McMaster was without regular starters Alex Elliott and Danny Demyanenko in the middle on Friday, with second-year hitters Jeff Driediger and Peter Khodkevych playing in their stead.
There was very little to choose between the two teams in the first set, with Mac taking the first promising lead at 14-11 after a kill from Kocur that brought up a Queen's timeout. The advantage was short-lived, and side-out volleyball reigned until the finish line, when a Seyar Karimi service error brought up set point for the Gaels at 26-25 and Scott Brunet finished the job with a quick kill through the middle.
Finding themselves in the unfamiliar position of battling from behind, the Marauders clawed through another see-saw set in the second, holding a slim 16-14 lead at the technical timeout after a block from Kocur. A bout of errors helped Queen's level the set, but Mac enjoyed another run late to bring up a slew of set points at 24-21 after an off-speed kill from McCarthy. They only needed one crack at it, as Queen's outside Marko Dakic cranked a shot into a double block to end it and level the match overall.
Riding the wave of their momentum won in the second, the Marauders came out strongly in the third set, and were doubling up the visitors 12-6 after Maar found himself unblocked on the outside. A Queen's service error brought the teams into the technical timeout with Mac leading by six, and the home side continued to press their advantage after the break. Another Gaels miss called up set points at 25-14, and the Marauders sealed the set three points later when Ben Harper's serve fell well long.
A sluggish start saw the Marauders fall behind 5-0 to open the fourth set, as Dakic toed the service line. But Mac quickly regrouped and began to claw back the deficit, and would sit within a point at the technical timeout. Emerging from the break strongly, the Marauders surged ahead and forced a team timeout from Queen's when Kocur knocked down an ace for 22-18. But the Gaels weren't ready to board the bus just yet, and evened the set in the final stages, forcing it into extra points, where a missed serve by Mike Tomlinson brought up a Marauder match point before Chris Brunet's cut shot went wide to end it.
Source: McMaster Marauders
Rams make quick work of Lakers in North Bay
NORTH BAY, Ont. - The Ryerson Rams men's volleyball team moved to 9-2 on the season following a 3-0 sweep (25-18, 25-18, 25-12) of the Nipissing Lakers on Friday night in North Bay.
BOXSCORE
Lucas Coleman (Brooklin, Ont.) had a game-high ten kills in the win while Robert Wojcik (Whitby, Ont.) added eight kills of his own. Uchenna Ofoha (Markham, Ont.) was efficient with seven kills on eight attacks.
The Rams kept one of the OUA's leading attackers in check on Friday as Nipissing's Cameron Branch finished with just six kills in three sets. Branch started the night averaging 4.07 kills per set.
Ryerson had an efficient night, hitting 38.8% throughout the match while forcing the Lakers into numerous errors and holding them to a hitting percentage of 0.0%.
The Rams (9-2) return to action on Saturday afternoon starting at 4:00 p.m. when they visit the York Lions (5-7).
Source: Nipissing Lakers