When they met in an pre-season women’s volleyball tournament at Ryerson, the pesky Rams continuously fought back from behind and extended the Blues to four games before falling, but last Tuesday at the Sports Gym, U of T took the fight out of the visitors by burying them when they got the lead.

U of T opened up early leads in every game and looked in full control from start to finish in a 25-17, 25-18, 25-11 rout of the Rams as the Blues (5-1) climbed into first place in the OUA East.

Blues coach Kristine Drakich was especially pleased to see her team finish off games after getting the early lead.

“We played the game the way we should be playing. That’s first team to 25. It’s not the team with the lead. The lead doesn’t mean anything,” said Drakich. “We definitely played with a little bit more focus than we have been playing with.”

U of T built 4-1 leads in each game of the match and did well to gradually increase those leads in each case, but never was the team’s killer instinct more evident than in the clinching third game when the Blues completely overwhelmed the deflated Rams (3-4) to close out the victory.

While Ryerson actually had a narrow 33-32 edge in kills in the match, the big difference between the teams was how few mistakes the Blues made and how many routine plays the Rams messed up.

“They had only nine hitting errors which is outstanding for us,” said Drakich in stark contrast to the 22 errors made by the visitors. “It was probably one of our best attacking games.”

The Blues also had a very balanced attack with Sara Pothaar putting away a team-high 10 kills and Sadie Stewart adding four block assists and three service aces to five kills for a team-high 12 points for the Blues.

Another player who came through with a big game for U of T was setter Lindsey Elliot who delivered seven kills in the match.

“We really stuck well to our game plan,” said Elliot, a second year player in her first year as a starter after backing up in the middle last season. “Getting to play is awesome and I really feel I’ve come a long way since last year.”

With four new starters in the lineup this season for the Blues some early struggles might have been expected, but Elliot said the team is coming along fast, and the blowout win over Ryerson is evidence of that.

“I think we’re getting a lot better at trusting each other and that’s making a big difference in our defence,” said Elliot.

The Blues improved to 5-1 with a win at Lakehead over the weekend.