For many teams, they could be said to be in the final stretch of their season.
Final Stretch is a new segment highlighting Queen’s varsity teams as their regular season winds down and the playoffs emerge. In the first iteration, The Journal sat down with Women’s Volleyball Head Coach Shanice Marcelle to talk about their season thus far, but also list expectations of what’s to come.
The team is currently 7-5 and sits in the middle of the pack in the OUA after a big home sweep of the Guelph Gryphons this past weekend. It’s been an up-and-down season for the team, which was expected after graduating four starters last season.
READ MORE: Season Preview: Men’s and Women’s Volleyball
Marcelle didn’t mince words when describing how the season has been thus far, saying “we’ve faced a lot of turbulence.” Marcelle added that “We lost a couple of matches we had opportunities to win and (have had our) injuries along the way.” Despite the adversity, Marcelle has been impressed with the group’s resilience, specifically the way “younger athletes have been able to step into the bigger roles in key moments.”
When looking ahead to their schedule, the Gaels will play six of eight on the road, including some games with big playoff implications. Marcelle acknowledged this fact, saying, “There’s a lot of parity in our league, one team can win on one night, and then things can flip on the second night.” Coupled with the fact that 11 teams have legitimate playoff odds for only eight playoff spots, Marcelle emphasized that “We know how important our second semester will be to keep our playoff hopes alive.”
During this last part of the season, the Gaels organized a Queen’s Women’s Volleyball Alumni Event on Feb. 9 at their University of Toronto game. In explaining the event, Marcelle admitted that a big passion of hers was to “bridge the gap between student athlete and becoming an alumni.” She went further, saying “It’d be nice have some fans in the stands at Toronto and then be able to socialize with us afterwards.”
With playoffs a no-guarantee, the coaching staff is preaching focus and process on things they need to work on and fine-tune heading into a pressure-packed stretch of games. “We’re really focusing on our offensive game and learning how to score more points in different ways,” said Marcelle. These different ways include trying to find different angles, edges and gaps in defence that the team can exploit and gain more points.
The Gaels’ last remaining home games are on Jan. 30 and 31 against the McMaster Marauders, where they’ll honour their graduating players moving on in their annual Senior’s Weekend.
Tags
Final Stretch, Head Coach Shanice Marcelle, Senior’s Weekend, Women's Volleyball
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