Squandered chance for veteran men’s volleyball squad

Gaels crash out of OUA Final Four without medal

Queen’s lost both games to Ryerson and Waterloo in the OUA Final Four.
Image by: Auston Chhor
Queen’s lost both games to Ryerson and Waterloo in the OUA Final Four.

Men’s volleyball will be ruing their pair of losses at last weekend’s OUA Final Four in Hamilton.

After losing in four sets against Ryerson on Thursday night, the Gaels still had a chance to advance to the CIS national championship on Friday night against the Waterloo Warriors in the OUA bronze medal game. With three seeds from the OUA moving on to the national title draw, a win in either game would have sufficed to advance.

The Gaels finished the OUA regular season with a 15-5 record, second in the province, which earned them the No. 9 rank nationally.

The Gaels were bested three sets to two by the Warriors, however. The loss reversed the scoreline of Queen’s final regular season game, where they defeated Waterloo at home. 

The bronze medal match started out as a rapid affair, with Queen’s taking the first set by a tight 26-24 score. Waterloo fought back from down 23-19 to even up the score at 24, but a set of two consecutive kills from Marko Dakic ended the set in Queen’s favour.

Queen’s picked up four straight points to start the second set. Waterloo pulled away though, eventually winning the set by eight points with a 25-17 win.

A strong third set saw Queen’s come away with a 26-15 set win. Queen’s didn’t hold the lead in set four past the first point, as Waterloo had a consistently strong set, winning 26-22.

The fifth set was a tiebreaker set; the first team to 15 would be named victorious and advance to the CIS bracket. Dakic’s kill put Queen’s ahead at 11-10, but it would be their last lead of the season. Waterloo reeled off four straight points, just before Mike Tomlinson sprung some life into Queen’s to cut the lead to two. Braden Cok’s kill ended the game in favour of Waterloo, by a 15-12 score.

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Men's Volleyball

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