Box Score The Waterloo men's volleyball team showed they could compete with the top team in the country on Friday night as they pushed the McMaster Marauders to the brink but fell short in 5-sets.  In what was Waterloo's final game before the Christmas break, the Warriors battled McMaster every step of the way but unfortunately came away empty handed.  Set scores were tight from start to finish at 25-19, 23-25, 32-30, 23-25, 15-11.

The opening set saw Mac with a narrow 16-14 edge at the technical break, but the Marauders managed to grow the lead to 20-15, and a combination of solid serving and some errors by the Warriors allowed McMaster to take the first set 25-19.

Set-two was closely contested with McMaster leading 13-9, when the Marauders started to make some passing errors that got the Warriors even at 15-15. Fighting to avoid a two-set deficit, Waterloo needed a timeout at 18-20 to stop the Maroon momentum. McMaster continued to struggle with its serve reception and the Warriors evened the match with a 25-23 win.

The third set will haunt Waterloo as the Warriors thoroughly outplayed the Marauders and looked poised to grab the lead in the match. Leading 18-12 Waterloo took its collective foot off the McMaster throat and gave the Marauders some life. Taking advantage McMaster rallied to tie the match at 20-20, and the set turned into a slugfest. Going into extra points, both teams had chances to win and every point had fans cheering like a title was at stake. Finally, it was the Warriors that missed on a timing play and the Marauders prevailed 32-30 to take a 2-1 set lead.

Despite missing an opportunity, Waterloo showed its mettle and battled in the fourth set, determined to force a fifth. Leading 22-17, Waterloo again allowed McMaster to close the gap but managed to hold on to win 25-23 to even up the match.

In the fifth set, McMaster took the early lead to dispel Waterloo notions of an upset. Leading 8-5 at the crossover, McMaster let the Warriors battle back to even at 8-8. The Marauders then went up 11-8 and were able to maintain the lead for a 15-11 victory that gave them the match.

Waterloo's fourth year middle Jordan Dyck (St. Catharines/) was a threat all game with 12 kills on just 15 attempts.  The recreation and leisure student also added three solo blocks and one assisted.  Zachary Doherty (Goderich/) was also an offensive catalyst with 14 kills in the match.  James Evans (Rockwood/Warriors) and Tyler Motherwell (Toronto/Warriors) rounded out the Waterloo attack with nine kills each while Scott Thomson (St. Marys/) had 46 assists.  Libero Erich Woolley (New Dundee/) led all players defensively with his 12 digs.

The Warriors will head into the break with a 7-3 record good for a tie for third spot in the OUA.  They will open up 2014 with a pair of road games at RMC and Queen's before returning to the PAC to face York in a pivotal game on Friday, January 17.