Box Score

The Warriors were looking to close out their pre-holiday season on a winning note, and turned to a familiar face to do so. Setter Gibson Graham (Markham) returned to his starting role with the black and gold to lead his side to a 3-1 (20-25, 25-17, 26-24, 25-18) victory over the dominant Gryphons. Graham had been sidelined to open the season after suffering a fluke injury during training camp. Waterloo moves to 7-4 on the season with a 4-game win streak in-tact while Guelph moves to 7-3.

Waterloo jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in front of a large raucous crowd that was in attendance for the final Think Pink event of the month for the Warriors. Waterloo would lead 16-15 at the technical timeout and it would go down from there. Attacking/service errors hurt the Warriors down the stretch as Waterloo dropped the opening set to Guelph 20-25 and fell behind 1-0 early in the match.

Waterloo again jumped out to an early 4-2 lead in the second set before an extended rally was pushed out of bounds by Guelph's Eric Wagner to put the Gryphons in an early 5-2 hole. Waterloo would own the next stanza as they extended to a 16-6 lead at the technical timeout largely as a result of solid blocking that thwarted the Guelph offence. Guelph would make a half-hearted comeback but would eventually drop the set to the Warriors 25-17 which knotted the match at 1.

One of Waterloo's strongest points on the net was their passing game as it allowed Graham to run a relentless offence which was too quick for Guelph to handle. Waterloo had a 9-6 lead before forcing Guelph into a timeout and later saw Jordan McConkey (Stratford) with a monster kill to give the black and gold a 17-13 lead. An absolute dog fight ensured to close out the third set but Waterloo emerged victorious 26-24 and took a 2-1 lead in the match.

The Gryphons were not going to simply lay over and gave themselves a 7-5 lead early in the 4^th set, however, Waterloo had other plans. Waterloo would score 6 of the next 7 points to force Guelph into a timeout who were trailing 11-8. Jordan Dyck (St. Catharines), one of Graham's favourite targets on the night, scored a huge kill later in the match to go ahead 18-15 and forcing Guelph into their second timeout. Waterloo would take advantage of the momentum generated from the crowd and eventually win the set 25-18 and win the match 3-1.

Aidan Simone (London) led the Warriors with 14 kills, 3 service aces and 8 digs while Dyck had 11 kills, 2 digs and 2 blocks. Captain Zachary Doherty (Goderich) chipped in with 11 kills, 11 digs and 6 blocks while Graham favoured well in his return with 41 assists, 11 digs and 2 service aces. Libero Erich Woolley (New Dundee) had 15 digs and now leads the OUA in both digs (118 – 3^rd in CIS) and digs per set (3.19).

Guelph standouts include Marc Wilson with 11 kills (.562) and 3 blocks while Patrick Strzalkowski had 10 kills and 6 digs. Kyle Richards had 30 assists and 9 digs in the loss.

Waterloo will now break for the holidays and return to action Friday, January 9 to take on the Toronto Varsity Blues at 6pm; a team they swept in straight sets early this season.