The Waterloo men's volleyball team dropped a straight set match (25-21, 25-20, 25-23) to the York Lions on Friday night at the Tait McKenzie Centre in Toronto.

With the win, the Lions improve to 2-2 on the season while the Warriors fell to 1-2.

The first set was an evenly matched, back-and-forth affair until Lions outside hitter Nikola Sandic (Etobicoke, Ont.) stepped up for his first service game of the match and rallied the Lions to five unanswered points and a 13-8 lead. The Warriors didn't have an answer for Sandic's heavy serves in the early going.

The Warriors would finally solve Sandic and climb their way back into the set, tying things up late at 17-17, but the Lions immediately responded with four straight points on Marvin Macalino's serve to win the set 25-21.

In the second set, the Lions would jump out to an early 6-2 lead on a four-point service game from Ray Szeto (Sutton, Ont.) and never look back.

The Warriors would go on a four-point run midway through the set to pull within one, but that's as close as they would get as the Lions put up three points on Macalino's following service game and cruised to the 25-20 set win.    
In the third set, the Lions fell asleep at the wheel momentarily and found themselves behind early as a result; however, they would regroup and win the set in dramatic fashion.

Down 6-2 and then 16-11, the Lions desperately needed a spark to turn the set around, and they got it from the explosive pair of Macalino and Sandic to cut the Warriors lead to 18-17.

Moments later, Felipe Humana-Paredes (Toronto) helped pull the Lions even at 19-19 with a huge point off a lengthy, hard-fought rally, setting up a tense conclusion to the set and match.

With the Lions down 22-21, Karim Khalil would step up and orchestrate a clutch three-point drive on his service game that gave the Lions a 24-22 lead. Szeto had one point and one block on the drive, and Ivan also had a massive block that set up match point. Much to the dismay of the home crowd, the Lions would not capitalize on match point and turn the ball over to the Warriors at 24-23.

Holding serve with the game on the line, the Warriors orchestrated a perfect set up play for their star player, outside hitter Cameron Wheelan (Barrie/) (Barrie, Ont.), who led all scorers with 12 points, but when he came down for the kill, he was met by the hands of Macalino, who blocked the ball down to give the Lions a 25-23 third set win and straight set victory.

Waterloo look to rebound this evening as they face the Toronto Varsity Blues at 8pm.