OUA Men's Volleyball Roundup (Feb. 5)
February 2, 2018
Western 3 Toronto 0
TORONTO – Western secured their eighth straight win on Friday evening, topping the Toronto Varsity Blues in three sets (25-20, 25-18, 32-30) at the Goldring Centre.
The win improves the purple and white record to 10-2, maintaining their spot in second place in the OUA West. Western has been on a hot streak lately, having only dropped one set since returning from the winter break to best Ryerson, Brock, Nipissing, York, and now Toronto.
Toronto now has six wins and seven losses on the season and remains tied for third place in the OUA East.
Bryn Ramsay was one of the highest scoring athletes on the floor, putting up 19 points for the Mustangs to tie for the game lead alongside the Varsity Blues Alex Barnes.
Three other Mustangs recorded ten or more points throughout the match, with Chris Newcombe and Evan Hammond scoring 12 apiece, while Evan Cranshaw added ten.
Western set the tone for the game in the first set, and would walk off the floor with a 25-20 victory.
The second set saw Toronto slow down the Mustangs, trailing the purple and white by only a single point at the technical timeout. However, upon returning to the floor Western outscored their opponents 9-3 to take the set by a score of 25-18.
The final set of the game was a marathon, as the two teams battled well beyond the expected end point. Western eventually took the set, but not until going into extra points to defeat the Varsity Blues 32-30 to take the match in straight sets.
Source: westernmustangs.ca
Windsor 3 Trent 0
The Lancer men's volleyball team swept the Trent Excalibur 3-0 (25-12, 25-16, 25-15) on Friday night before falling to the Ryerson Rams in five tough sets 3-2 (20-25, 22-25, 25-23 25-23, 8-15) Saturday in Toronto.
The split keeps the Lancers in third place in the west division standings.
On Friday, the Blue & Gold had a balanced attack against the host Excalibur. Dominating the game right from the get-go, Windsor was led by Brad Gyemi with 9 kills and 2 aces, John Moate with 6 kills and Roland Bouchard with 5.
Defensively, Windsor held the Excalibur to just 28 points overall and just 23 kills in the game.
Source: golancers.ca
February 3, 2018
Brock 3 Queen’s 2
The Brock University men's volleyball team captured their fourth straight victory as they defeated the Queen's Gaels by the score of 3-2 Saturday on the road.
Queen's took sets one and three and led 2-1 after three. The Badgers rallied back to win set four 25-19 and closed out the contest in the most exciting finish of the season with a 19-17 victory in set five.
Leading the Badgers offense was rookie Logan House who registered a career-high 24 kills and four aces. Timmy Spisar contributed with 15 kills and 10 digs for the double double and Peter Schnabel added 10 kills to round out the leaders. Setter Marcelo Correa collected 43 assists, seven digs and four kills while libero Felipe Costa added 13 digs in the victory.
For the Gaels, Markus Trence added 17 kills in the loss.
The Badgers recorded 63 kills with 23 errors on 153 for a .261 hitting percentage. Queen's collected 62 kills with 21 errors on 145 for a .283 hitting percentage.
Source: gobadgers.ca
McMaster 3 RMC 0
Returning to action after a rare bye week, the Marauders put their depth on display in a convincing performance in Kingston Saturday.
First-year Marauder Nathan Delguidice (Cochrane, ON) enjoyed a breakout performance to lead a lineup dominated by Mac's second unit, as the Marauders swept the RMC Paladins 25-10, 25-14, 25-18 to improve to 11-1 in OUA play.
The former Mohawk Mountaineer, Delguidice had a career high 12 kills and 13 points to top the match, committing just one error and averaging .393 while adding an ace in the win.
Handed the keys to the McMaster offence, veteran setter Calvin Lee (Mississauga, ON) posted 33 assists and a match high of eight digs across three sets of work.
Despite boasting a wildly different lineup from their usual complement, the Marauders were an efficient 40-89 hitting Saturday, committing just seven errors as a group (.371), while holding their opponents to an average of just .140.
The most encouraging area of the match for the Paladins in defeat came at the net, where the hosts had a total of 10.5 blocks.
But they were undone from the service line, committing 12 service errors without an ace versus McMaster's even 7-7 mark from the line.
Source: marauders.ca
Windsor 2 Ryerson 3
TORONTO - The Ryerson Rams dug their way out of a familiar situation, besting the Windsor Lancers 3-2 in five strongly contested sets Saturday night at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Tonight’s victory comes at an opportune time, as the one-and-done weekend victory sees the Rams sitting on top of the OUA East standings. This isn’t the first time that the Rams have been No. 1 this season, but there have been struggles as of late.
Those struggles were apparent in the third and fourth sets, as what looked to be a clean sweep quickly became a tense battle to the end. As finesse and bravado turned to errors and complacency, Rams head coach Adam Simac knew that he had to light a fire under his team heading into the fifth set - a position they have been in four times in the last five games.
“I tried to recreate the sense of urgency that we had in the first two sets,” Simac said. “We got complacent in the third and fourth sets, and we started to let the little things fall through the cracks. Those cracks turned into big holes after enough things fell through.”
As the Rams took to the court once again for the fifth set, all of the pieces fell into place once again. Lucas Coleman (Brooklin, Ont.) was dropping cross-court kills with laser precision, Adam Anagnostopoulos (Waterloo, Ont.) made it nearly impossible for the Lancers to clear the net, and Simon Davis-Power (Conception Bay South, Nfld.) lived up to his name as an unstoppable force. All in all, the Rams were playing like the Rams.
“Part of what makes these guys such fantastic student-athletes is that they are all really intelligent guys,” Simac said, “and the first two sets we won because we used, not only our physicality and our volleyball ability, but we used our heads. We stopped in the third and fourth sets. We need to remember that being a student-athlete is a massive asset here. Especially for a school like Ryerson.”
While previously mentioned names were more experienced players, one of the more eye catching presences on the court was freshman libero Jackson Dunning (Ottawa, Ont.). Making his first appearance in the 2018 portion of the season, Dunning was certainly outmatched by the sheer power and experience of the other players on the court, but a few flashes of brilliance with diving digs certainly was an attention-grabber.
“He shook off the rust pretty fast,” Simac said. “It was a good first step tonight. I think with a bit of time off, and then having a decent week of practice next week, and a good preparation week for Queen’s and RMC, I think we’re going to see the real Jackson Dunning come out.”
Source: ryersonrams.ca
Guelph 1 Waterloo 3
It was a must win match for the Warriors men's volleyball team on Saturday night as they took on Guelph at the PAC.
After falling to the Gryphons one week ago in Guelph Waterloo needed the two points to stay in a fight for a playoff position.
Braden Cok (Waterloo/) and Aidan Simone (London/)came up huge for the home side each putting away 13 kills as Waterloo mustered a 4 set victory over the visiting Gryphons.
With the win Waterloo moved into a tie with Guelph for the fourth and final playoff spot with 10 points but have a game on hand having only played in 12 matches compared to 13 for the Gryphs.
Cok led the way with 15 points and also played solid defence with 11 digs while Simone had 14.5 points and a game high 12 digs. Kevin LeBreux (Cumberland/) chipped in with seven kills while setter Colm Guyn (Lethbridge/) had himself a night with 40 assists and four blocks. Matthew Mawdsley (London/) also put up four blocks in the match.
Rounding out Waterloo's attack was rookie outside Deman Dulat (Mississauga/) who put away five kills on just six attempts and Jordan McConkey (Stratford/) who put down four.
Leading the way for Guelph was Zachary Newman who seemed to be in on almost every play in the match with 20 kills. Samuel Kloke finished with 38 assists for his squad in a losing effort.
Source: athletics.uwaterloo.ca
Western 3 Trent 0
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. – The Mustangs secured their ninth straight win this evening, needing only three sets (25-21, 25-11, 25-16) to best the Trent Excalibur.
With the win, Western's record moves to 10-2 for the season as they occupy second in the OUA West standings. They currently sit one win behind the McMaster Marauders, who lead the OUA West. Trent remains winless, now 0-11 to sit last in the East division.
Chris Newcombe recorded 8.5 points to lead the purple and white scoresheet, but rookie Brady Fidler was close behind with 7.5 of his own. Bryn Ramsay and Evan Cranshaw followed up with seven points apiece to round out the offensive effort.
Emmanuel Danso-Amofa led the effort for Trent, with five kills, a solo block, and three assisted blocks to total 7.5 points. The second highest scoring member of the Excalibur was Jacob Bothen, with six points.
The first set saw the best showing from the host Excalibur, with the team only being edged out by four points to kick off the match.
Western rushed through the next two sets, refusing to let up on the struggling Excalibur.
Set two saw the Mustangs take a commanding 25-11 victory, which they followed up with a 25-16 win to close out the match.
Source: westernmustangs.ca
February 4, 2018
Brock 3 RMC 0
The Brock University men's volleyball team swept the RMC Paladins 3-0 on the road Sunday.
With the victory, the Badgers have now captured five straight and are still in the hunt for a possible playoff berth in the OUA West Division.
Leading the Badgers offense was Timmy Spisar who recorded 14 kills and seven digs. Dean Dean Globockiregistered nine kills while Alex Carter and Peter Schnabel chipped in with seven and six kills respectively. Setter Marcelo Correa added 33 assists while libero Felipe Costa collected 10 digs in the win.
For the Paladins, Dale Towe and Richard Bucar combined for 22 of their team's 36 digs.
For the match, Brock registered 40 kills with 14 errors on 106 attempts for a .245 hitting percentage. RMC collected 36 kills with 17 errors on 111 for a .171 hitting percentage.
Source: gobadgers.ca
McMaster 3 Queen’s 1
A day after McMaster's second unit starred across town, the Marauders starters returned to the lineup to great effect at Queen's Sunday.
The trio of hitters Brandon Koppers (Georgetown, ON), Andrew Richards (London, ON) and Matthew Passalent(Hamilton, ON) combined for 40 kills, as Mac overcame a lost first set to beat Queen's in four sets (19-25, 25-22, 25-15, 25-13).
With the win, the U SPORTS sixth-ranked Marauders improved to 12-1 in OUA play, extending their winning streak to 12 matches dating back to November.
Richards led all Marauders with 14 kills, adding three aces and a block and a half for 18.5 points. He was matched in points by Koppers, who had 13 kills and excelled from the service line, racking up five aces.
The most efficient of the three offensively, Passalent had 13 kills on 27 attempts with just two errors (.407) while adding an ace and two and a half blocks for 16.5 points.
Committing just nine errors as a team over four sets, the Marauders hit .360 as a team and were a plus six from the service line (12 aces versus six errors).
Source: marauders.ca