Winter brings with it our favorite part about this time of year — the OUA volleyball season. On November 23, the Varsity Blues took their third win of this season: 3–1 against the TMU Bold in the ‘Line 1 Derby’, as The Blues lost to the Bold in last year’s OUA season playoffs. An auspicious start to only their second matchup of the season, the Blues double down on this recent victory and look ahead to the season coming.

“It was the first win of our OUA season,” said middle blocker Anna Gadomski in an interview with The Varsity. “We’re just so happy that we trusted our systems and we made it ‘til the end because we won, and there’s more volleyball tomorrow.”

What happened

The Blues took the first point of the first set and maintained a steady lead, with their points hitting double-digits first at 10–6 and pushing on, forcing the Bold to call a timeout at 19–14. The Blues continued on to hit hard, forcing another Bold timeout at 22–16, Blues setter Robin Melnick ended the set at 25–18 with a clean float service ace, her second ace of the set.

The second set opened with a 4–0 lead, but the Blues found themselves stuck at nine points as the Bold caught up, with the Blues calling a timeout at 8–9. The Bold took the lead at 14–11, leading the Blues to substitute in hard-hitter Olivia Zhu, who quickly scored two of the next four points. TMU called a timeout with the scores 19–16 as the Blues began to catch up, but ultimately took the set at 25–18.

The Bold started off the third set until the Blues called a timeout at 7–2 and tried to close the five-point gap. The Bold still led at 19–14, at which the Blues called another timeout for, but they quickly regained their pace, hitting scoring point after point to tie the points at 20–20. The Bold struggled to pull ahead and the Blues took the set at 25–23 despite their earlier fallback, which is evidence of a well-played set.

The final set had second-year setter Anna Arellano substituted-in to toss and the set was slow going for the most part. Both teams reconvened at several points to try and pull ahead, but the set quickly turned to a deuce as they battled it out. Taking the game into the final moments, the Blues took the final point at 33–31.

What’s next

“I feel so excited and ready for the future,” shared Melnick in a post-game interview with The Varsity. “I feel so strongly about how we’re going to perform… how hard we battle, and how we’re ready to keep playing.”

The team then travelled to Kingston for a pair of games on November 29 and 30, losing cleanly in both games against the Queens Gaels 3–0. The Blues are off for the winter break and play their next games on January 17–18 at the University of Ottawa.