Box Score The Warriors men's volleyball team was swept in straight sets (15-25, 20-25, 15-25) by the Queen's Gaels on Saturday evening at the PAC. In early September, the Warriors defeated Queen's 3-2 and 3-1 in exhibition action but that did not translate through on this evening. The Warriors fall to 3-4 on the season as part of Warrior Recreation volleyball league night.
The Warriors were coming off a tough loss the night prior courtesy of the McMaster Marauders and seemed poised to exact some revenge on the Gaels. Queen's had a different ending in mind as they controlled the action through much of the contest.
In the opening set, all gears seemed to be turning for the Queen's Gaels offence as setter James Wright seemed in sync with all his offensive threats. Queen's jumped out to an early lead as the Warriors defence could not keep up to the potent offence. The Gaels took the first set in commanding fashion 25-15.
The momentum seemed to carry over to the second set as the Warriors fell to an early 8-2 deficit. Queen's would steal 8 of the next 13 to give them a 16-7 lead at the technical timeout. Poor passing from the Warriors did not allow the offence to ever get rolling and this plagued the Warriors. After going on a strong run, the black and gold clawed back to close the gap to 23-19 but it was too-little, too-late as Queen's took the second set 25-20 to take a commanding 2-0 lead.
After going down 6-4 early to Queen's, the Warriors seemed mentally unfocused and continued to make costly personal errors. Waterloo was down 16-10 at the technical timeout and slowly got pushed out of this game. The black and gold eventually dropped the third set 25-15 en route to being swept for the second time in two nights.
Jordan Dyck (St. Catharines) had the strongest night for the Warriors collecting 8 kills and 2 blocks while
Zachary Doherty (Goderich) followed close with 7 kills (3
rd in OUA), 4 digs and 2 blocks.
Nikola Dimitrijevic (Mississauga) and
Gibson Graham (Markham) split roles running the offence, combining for 24 assists and 4 digs in the contest.
Queen's Philippe Goyer had an incredible evening amassing over 35% of the Gaels offence with 17 kills, 3 digs and 3 blocks while Mike Tomlinson followed closely with 11 kills, 2 service aces, 9 digs and 4 blocks. Setter Jamie Wright added 37 assists and 5 digs to his season totals in the victory.
The Warriors will look to rebound next Saturday as they visit RMC at 1pm and look for revenge as they visit Queen's on Sunday at 3pm.
