AROUND OUA: Career night from Coleman leads Rams over Mustangs
Third year attacker Lucas Coleman (Brooklin, Ont.) set new career highs in both kills and digs on Friday night as he led the Ryerson Rams men's volleyball team to a 3-1 (25-22, 33-31, 25-27, 25-15) victory over the Western Mustangs in London.
SCOREBOARD
Career night from Coleman leads Rams over Mustangs
Third year attacker Lucas Coleman (Brooklin, Ont.) set new career highs in both kills and digs on Friday night as he led the Ryerson Rams men's volleyball team to a 3-1 (25-22, 33-31, 25-27, 25-15) victory over the Western Mustangs in London.
Coleman finished with 23 kills and ten digs, both new personal bests, while Alex Dawson (Scarborough, Ont.) tied his career high with 15 kills and Marc Reardon (London, Ont.) added 13 kills in his hometown.
The Rams took the first set 25-22 before outlasting the Mustangs in a marathon second set which Ryerson finally took on a kill from Reardon at 33-31.
The momentum from the second set didn't carry over, however, as the Mustangs extended the match with a 27-25 third set win.
Ryerson rebounded well and quickly ended the match with a 25-15 fourth set win.
The win moves the Rams record to 7-2 on the season and they will close out the 2015 portion of their schedule on Saturday night when they take on the Windsor Lancers (1-8) in Windsor at 8:00 p.m.
Source: Ryerson Rams
Gryphons pick up second straight victory with straight sets win over York
Guelph, ON - The Gryphons Men's Volleyball team won in straight sets Friday night over the visiting York Lions at the W.F. Mitchell Athletics Centre. Set scores were 25-16, 32-30 and 25-15. With the result the Gryphons earn their second consecutive win and improve to 3-6 on the season while the Lions drop to 5-6.
The first set saw Guelph jump out to an early 5-1 run to take an early 11-6 lead which saw the hosts utilize their power and their strong frontline control the set early on. York started to settle down midway through the set but a Josh Green kill saw the Gryphs go up 16-10 and they would never look back. Second Year player Zach Newman came up huge late picked up two critical points and Guelph finished off the set when Conan Mickey's block won the Gryphons the first set, 25-16.
The second set would be the turning point of the match between the two sides as it was a really tight set throughout. Guelph held a 15-12 lead midway through the set before York made a run taking seven of the next eight points to lead 19-16. The next point was critical for the Gryphons as the Lions had all the momentum going for them and after a long rally, Kyle Richards finished off the point for Guelph and the dynamic of the set changed as there were no separating both teams as they had chance after chance to close out the set but couldn't. The Lions let a couple points slip away with a chance to serve out the set with service errors and the Gryphs weren't able to find the finishing shot when leading. The back and forth would continue until the 31-30 point after a huge save from the Gryphons to start a rally and the next time the ball came back to Guelph, Josh Green would finish off the set with the kill and all the momentum heading into the third set as it took 32 points to outlast York's 30.
The Gryphons came out of the third set riding the momentum from the previous set jumping on York with a quick 8-2 run to start the set. York slowly climbed back into this match after both teams traded mini runs and after taking three straight points to climb back into the set only down 16-13, it felt like a repeat of November 15 but after timeout, Guelph would cap of the match with their most impressive run of the night. The Gryphs would take 9 of the next 11 points to close out York in straight sets taking the third set 25-15.
The Gryphons will look to extend their win streak to three games as they host the Nipissing Lakers Saturday (Nov. 28) at 4 p.m.
Source: Guelph Gryphons
Lancers split weekend home series
The Lancer men's volleyball team closed out 2015 with a weekend split on home court against the Toronto Varsity Blues and Ryerson Rams.
On Friday night, Windsor dropped a 3-1 decision to Toronto (21-25, 25-22, 15-25, 18-25) before coming back with a huge five set 3-2 victory over the third place Rams (25-21, 14-25, 25-27, 25-23, 15-11) on Saturday.
Heading into the holiday break, the Blue & Gold are 2-8 in the OUA standings.
After falling 25-21 to Toronto in the first set, Windsor rebounded 25-22 in the second but couldn't maintain the momentum. The Lancers bowed out 25-15 in set three, and gave up the best-of-five with a 25-18 loss in the final set.
Josh Edwards led Windsor's effort with 11 kills, while John Moate and Brad Gyemi contributed 6 apiece. Defensively Shawn Reaume and Blase Wasser had 8 digs each with Gyemi and Matthew De Benito registering 6.
On Saturday, the Lancers came out strong against the Rams taking the first set 25-21 before struggling defensively against the Rams in the second, falling 25-14.
Windsor rebounded in the third going point for point with the Rams narrowly falling in extra points. The fourth was a set full of long rallies making for an entertaining game. Brad Gyemi came up with huge late in the set with four points to push the game to a fifth set.
In the final set, Ryerson took a 3-0 lead before the Lancers rallied with four unanswered points of their own. Unforced errors on the Ryerson side of the net gave the Lancers the opportunity to secure the win and a kill by Gyemi did just that.
Edwards and Gyemi led the Lancers with 14 kills each, while Matthew Pe Benito led the team defensively with 15 digs.
The Lancers will now break until January 15th when they host the Waterloo Warriors at 8:00pm.
Source: Windsor Lancers
Warriors top Paladins 3-1 for sixth straight win
The Waterloo men's volleyball team extended their winning streak to six games with a 3-1 (25-13, 25-19, 22-25, 25-13) win over the RMC Paladins on Friday night in Kingston. The win improved Waterloo's record to 7-3 and they now sit in a tie for second spot with Queen's and Ryerson all at 14 points.
Greg Simone (London) led the way for Waterloo with 15 kills while Jordan McConkey (Stratford) had 11 up the middle. Rookie middle hitter Jonathan Loos (Delaware) had his best game in the black and gold playing all four sets amassing eight kills, two service aces and three blocks.
Daniel Fiddick (Warwick) also saw some quality playing time and made the most of it with eight kills of his own while playing solid defence with 16 digs, the most of either team. Nikola Dimitrijevic (Mississauga) was solid at the setter position collecting 47 assists in the win.
RMC's attack came primarily from Adam Lupton and Dale Towe who combined for 21 kills in the match. Lupton was also big at the net with four blocks.
The Warriors will look to make it seven straight in an all-important match-up with Queen's tonight. The winner will jump into sole possession of second place in the OUA standings. Game time is set for 8pm in Kingston.
Source: Waterloo Warriors
Marauders prevail over Gaels in battle of CIS ranked squads
KINGSTON, Ont. (November 27,2015) - The No. 10 Queen's Gaels men's volleyball fell to the undefeated No. 1 McMaster Marauders 3-0 (25-13, 25-21, 25-23) on Friday evening at the Athletics and Recreation Centre.
In a battle of the top squads in the OUA conference, with just one loss between them thus far in the regular season, the top-ranked Marauders used a potent offense that worked at a formidable .515 efficiency, collecting an average of just under 15 kills per set for the win.
The Gaels garnered a hitting percentage of .269, and were led by Marko Dakic (Mississauga, Ont.) who tallied 10 kills, two aces and 12.5 points in the loss. Jamie Wright (Kingston) tallied 27 assists, and Mike Tomlinson (Stratford, Ont.) added eight kills and four digs for Queen's.
Stephen Maar collected 15 kills to help the Marauders record their 10th straight victory. McMaster has not lost a set since its opening match of the season.
GAME FLOW
The No. 1 team in the nation showed its offensive prowess right from the beginning of the opening set, jumping out to a 16-7 lead at the technical timeout. The Marauders used their power and blocking ability to keep the Gaels out of step throughout the set, and a big kill from Danny Demyanenko off an errant serve-receive from the hosts put a stamp on a dominant first set win.
Down 18-12 in the second set, the men put together a 3-0 run to bring themselves within three. The squads then exchanged four-straight service errors, and the lead remained unchanged heading into the latter half of the set. Queen's was able to stay with the Marauders, point for point, but could not string together a run to tie the set, putting McMaster in the driver's seat heading into the third set of play.
After a close second set, the Marauders were looking to stymie any hopes of a thrilling comeback bid by the hosts. Using some hard hitting that tested the Gaels blockers, McMaster quickly accelerating to a 6-1 lead, which prompted a timeout from Head Coach Brenda Willis.
The break seemed to spark the hosts, who sliced the Marauder lead down to two. An ace from Matt Golas (Toronto) cut the deficit to a single point. Then, a kill from Dakic and a block from Will Hoey (Brampton, Ont.) helped the men draw even on two occasions leading up to the technical timeout, where the visitors held a 16-15 lead.
The squads then proceeded to trade the lead through to the final moment of the set, which saw the hosts up 23-22. After a great serve from Tomlinson forced an immediate overpass from the Marauders, the Gaels were unable to take advantage, and a rotation error soon after gave the guests a match point. McMaster mad good on their opportunity to close out the match, handing Queen's its first loss since the second game of the season.
FINAL SAY
"McMaster plays a tempo and a power game that we don't face in the rest of the league," said Willis. "There's a reason their number one in the country. And so it took us a set and a half to really just get comfortable with what was coming at us. I think the gap between us and them is closer to what happened in the third set. I don't think our serving was consistent or aggressive, and we also didn't pass to the setter as much as we wanted to. That is also a credit to McMaster's tough serving. We are better than we showed but not as good as them right now."
BY THE NUMBERS
6- Queen's six-game winning streak, which came to an end against McMaster on Friday
28- McMaster has won 28 sets in a row beginning from their five-set win over Waterloo in October
14- Both teams committed 14 service errors each throughout the match
UP NEXT
The Gaels will look to end the first half of their season on a winning note Saturday night at the ARC, where they will host the Waterloo Warriors. Game-time is set for 8:00 p.m.
Source: Queen's Gaels
