Exciting playoff action is sure to be served up this Friday as the Ontario University Athletic East division winning Women’s Volleyball (17-2) host the fourth-ranked Queen’s Golden Gaels in quarterfinal action.
The Blues are among the favourites to represent Ontario at the 2007 Canadian Interuniversity Sport Women’s Volleyball Championship in Calgary. But the team prefers not to look too far in advance.
“We made goals at the beginning of the season and we know where we want to go, but we break it down step-by-step,” co-captain Mila Miguel said. “We practice one day at a time and play point for point.”
However, after this past weekend’s ugly loss to McMaster (15-4), it looks as though the Blues will need to dig a little deeper if they hope to spike to the top of the OUA. On Friday, the Marauders pummelled the Blues on their home court to take the victory in three straight sets (25-20, 25-10, 25-21). Libero Vivian Chan led U of T’s defence with 15 digs, but McMaster’s service and hitting attack proved too strong.
“We weren’t really playing cohesively as a team,” Chan said. “It was an off day, but we’re not stressing. We’re confident about moving on.”
The U of T Blues did just that, regaining their winning ways by defeating Brock (8-11) Saturday 3-1. The well-rounded squad showed its depth with veteran left-side hitter Miguel and rookie Caley Venn eading the team with 16 kills. Left-side hitter Heather Bansley led the defence with 29 digs alongside 10 hits. After sitting out the previous night because of a back injury, starting setter Anastasia Danilova was back in the line-up. Danilova is not only trusted for her precise volleys and solid defence, but the starting setter is also one of the teams leading hitters. With a 0.305 kill percentage that comes in as 10th-best in the OUA, Danilova is a figure to pay attention to in the upcoming playoffs.
The difficulty the Blues present the opposition is the team’s number of quality players, Miguel said.
“Our depth is huge,” she said. “We all believe that we can win with any of the 15 girls on the roster.”
While Miguel is quick to highlight the team, the co-captain leads by example and is an integral part of the team. In her fourth year on the squad, Miguel is ranked seventh in Ontario player standings and 15th overall in CIS rankings, having scored 236 points this season.
Able to post a win over the Badgers the day after their second loss of the season revealed a lot about U of T’s gumption as they go into the playoffs.
“It doesn’t matter who we face,” Miguel said. “We practice, prepare and execute. We don’t think about whom we are facing. To us it’s just another game. We all just want to play.”
With few players over the six-foot mark, the Blues may lack size, but that says nothing about their skill level or their heart. The team relies on their strong blocking and focused defence.
“We are a confident blocking team and height is not really an issue,” Miguel said. “Thanks to the training regimen from our assistant Coach Wen Li, we’ve spent many a hard practice working on our defence, and as a team we’ve really improved. So much so that I believe our team can dig up balls that not many other teams can. We’ve got a tenacious defence.”
