In the lone match of the morning session, the uOttawa Gee-Gees faced the McGill Marlets in an interesting matchup. Ottawa had compiled a 5-2 pre-season record up to that point with both losses coming against McGill. The two teams had won their respective pools on day 1 of the competition and were playing for seeding in the semifinal matches. Before the start of the match, the two head coaches decided on playing a best-of-three match, instead of the customary best-of-five, as both teams were already guaranteed a spot into the semifinals. The Gee-Gees and Martlets battled fiercely in the closely-contested first set which uOttawa ended up taking 25-23. And Ottawa ended up beating McGill in an unorthodox 2-0 victory after easily dispatching the Marlets 25-14 in the second set.
Two OUA squads in McMaster and Waterloo faced off with a berth into the semifinals on the line in one of the afternoon matches, and while a young Waterloo squad performed admirably, McMaster earned the 3-1 victory. Of note, Waterloo setter Rachel Runnels made her return to Montpetit Hall; Runnels played for uOttawa from 2003-07 and is now playing for the Warriors while attending Waterloo's pharmacy school. In other afternoon matchup, the Sherbrooke Vert et Or defeated the Guelph Gryphons in five sets despite losing the first two sets.
Behind the strong play of fifth-year middle Kathryn Weihrer and excellent serving of third-year LS/RS Myriam English, the Gee-Gees got off to a 16-5 lead in the first set of their semifinal match against Sherbrooke. Some of the younger Gee-Gees then got a chance to play and they responded well to the playing time, as Ottawa won the first set 25-15. Thanks to stellar blocking from Weihrer, Myriam and Kelsie English, the Gee-Gees easily won the second set as well, 25-11. Second-year middle Alix Durivage had three straight service aces at one point in the second set. However, a resilient Sherbrooke squad took the next two sets 26-24 and 25-16 to set up the tiebreaking fifth set. In the final set, the Gee-Gees came up huge when it mattered the most, beating Sherbrooke 15-7.
"We were very good in the first two sets-we didn't make a lot of errors-but they caught rhythm in set three and four. I thought the changing point was in set four when they were blowing us out, but we put our foot down and got as many points as we could. We changed the momentum there and we carried it into set five," explained Gee-Gees head coach Lionel Woods. "I give our strength coaches a ton of credit for our success in five-set matches because we are a really fit team."
"We started off really well like we did against Laval last weekend, but we had a little slipup. We stayed together as a team, though, and we really came through in the fifth set," said Myriam English. "Quebec teams are very good and it was a great challenge to play them this pre-season."
Ottawa will now play McMaster-who beat McGill 3-0 in the other semifinal-at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow with a tournament gold medal on the line.
Gee-Gees box scores
| |
1
|
2
|
FINAL
|
|
McGill
|
23
|
14
|
0
|
|
Gee-Gees
|
25
|
25
|
2
|
| |
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
FINAL
|
|
Sherbrooke
|
15
|
11
|
26
|
25
|
7
|
2
|
|
Gee-Gees
|
25
|
25
|
24
|
16
|
15
|
3
|
Other results
McMaster (3) vs Waterloo (1)
27-25, 25-18, 26-28, 25-17
Guelph (2) vs Sherbrooke (3)
30-32, 22-25, 25-19, 25-22, 15-13
McGill (0) vs McMaster (3)
25-17, 25-21, 25-20
