Simon Mitchell
men’s basketball
The men’s basketball team has won four of its last five games with an injury-depleted lineup.
Guard Simon Mitchell has been picking up the slack: he poured in a career-high 29 points on five of 11 three-point shooting in the team’s loss to U of T on Saturday.
Mitchell added 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists the previous night in the Gaels’ 77-69 victory over Ryerson.
Head coach Rob Smart said Mitchell’s playing some of his best basketball at Queen’s.
“He’s one of our most veteran players, and he’s turned into one of our leaders,” he said.
“He’s not terribly vocal, but he gets the job done.”
With point guard Baris Ondul sidelined with a groin injury, Mitchell has filled in admirably.
Smart said Mitchell loves to play so much, sometimes it’s hard to sit him down.
“He’s been playing as many minutes as he can. We’re usually trying to get him off the floor. I think he’s been pretty consistent, though.”
Mitchell is second on the team in points-per-game with 14.6, enough to crack the top-20 in OUA scoring.
Mitchell said he attributes his recent consistent shooting to extra practice.
“I’ve been getting into the gym more to shoot before practice.”
The men face the 14-0 Carleton Ravens tonight and the 0-14 RMC Paladins tomorrow.
Mitchell said the team is approaching both games with the same attitude.
“We need every win we can get if we want to finish third. Carleton’s the best team in the country but we’ll play our hardest.”
—Mike Woods
Colleen Ogilvie
women’s volleyball
Women’s volleyball rookie middle hitter Colleen Ogilvie put up an amazing 15 kills on only 25 attempts in the Gaels’ victory over the Ryerson Rams last Saturday.
Ogilvie also added three service aces for Queen’s.
Her numbers in kills and aces were both game-highs, which is rare due to her position.
Usually outside hitters rack up more kills, because most teams set them more frequently. Ogilvie’s 25 attempts were only the third-highest on the team, and her 15 kills tied her with Ryerson’s Lindsay Franco for the game lead, but Franco took 57 attempts to record her 15 kills.
Ogilvie said her strong performance was primarily due to putting in effort in training.
“It was just the result of hard work in practice,” she said.
Ogilvie added that her game can still improve.
“It’s come a fair way, but it can get better,” she said.
Head coach Joely Christian said Ogilvie is already showing leadership.
“Colleen’s proven herself to be a leader on the court in terms of offence, even serving,” she said.
“She plays like a veteran.”
Christian said the next step for Ogilvie will be improving her blocking.
“If she can start to put up big blocking numbers, that will help our whole blocking game,” she said.
Ogilvie and the women’s team will host the York Lions and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues this weekend.
Despite York and Toronto being third and first in the OUA East standings respectively, Ogilvie said she thinks the Gaels have a solid chance.
“I feel pretty confident.”
—Andrew Bucholtz
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.