For the second time in this year’s playoffs, the Varsity Blues women’s volleyball team survived blowing a 2-0 lead in the decisive fifth game to win a heart-stopping victory, beating Wilfrid Laurier 3-2 (25-23, 25-18, 12-25, 25-27, 15-9) in the OUA semi-finals Saturday night at the Sports Gym.
U of T’s semi-final victory means a trip to next weekend’s CIS championships at Laval, along with cross-town rival Ryerson, who beat Western in the late semi-final on Saturday.
U of T survived a barrage of kills from Wilfrid Laurier’s star duo of Lisa Martin and Cathy Ingalls (who combined to knock off 48 kills in the match) and answered with strong blocking, led by five rejections from Lindsay Elliott.
“I think for us it was all-around team play. They have one player who had 25 kills (Martin, with 26, actually) where we had, you know, four or five players with eight to 17 kills,” said Rebecca Moskowitz (14 kills and three blocks), who felt U of T’s superior depth paid dividends. “That, I think, is key. (Martin) gets tired, we can start blocking her, right? Us, they don’t know who to block because anyone can hit it at any time.”
While the Golden Hawks (18-0, regular season) had a 69-57 advantage in team kills, they drew theirs from four sources, while the Blues (11-6) got kills from seven different players. U of T also had an 18-10 edge in blocks and committed just 20 errors in the nearly two-and-a-half hours match to Laurier’s 33.
Early in the match, it looked like the undefeated visitors would assert their dominance, jumping out to leads of 5-1 and 15-10. The Blues led the opener on only two occasions, but made their second lead count, as after a Sadie Stewart block (four blocks and eight kills total) put U of T in front 24-23, Moskowitz polished off the game with a kill on the very next point.
After U of T took game two in routine fashion, an unfocused, sloppy third game let the Hawks back in the match.
Laurier took full advantage, romping to an easy third game win and controlling much of the fourth game as well.
“In the third and fourth games we didn’t pass serve very well…we lost control of what we had control over,” said Blues coach Kristine Drakich, who felt her team opened the door for the Laurier comeback by getting away from what won them the first two games.
“When we control the ball when it comes to us, like when we serve receive well, when we execute the first contact well, we do good things.”
Laurier looked poised to put game four away with a 24-20 lead, but kills from Sara Pothaar (team high 18 kills total) and Moskowitz tied it for U of T.
The Hawks eked out a 27-25 win, but by saving five game points before succumbing, the Blues had the crowd in a frenzy going into the do-or-die fifth.
The home side quickly took command of the final game, opening up an 8-1 lead. Laurier fought back to cut U of T’s lead to two at 10-8, but the Blues immediately respond with a 6-0 run to put the game out of reach en route to a 15-9 final game victory.
Look in Thursday’s Varsity for the result of the OUA final played Sunday night and U of T’s draw at the CIS championships.
