After a seven-week hiatus from competitive action, the Lions’ women’s volleyball took on the Ryerson Rams and the U of T Varsity Blues at the Tait MacKenzie Centre on January 11 and 12. As if battling through the built up rust was not hard enough, the women’s team learned two of their star players, Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, would not be playing due to injury.
Now missing a large part of the firepower that led York to an 8-1 record, Head Coach Nick Tran was looking for players to step up.
The task of replacing their two stars proved to be much more difficult than anticipated as they struggled in Saturday’s game against the Rams. An uncharacteristic four-set loss to the lower-seeded Rams proved how much of a challenge it would be playing shorthanded.
Focusing on filling in the offensive hole could have been a detrimental thought process, says Tran.
“Our three main strengths are serving, defense, and offense in that order.” he says. “We did a great job offensively against the Rams, but lacked in the serving and defensive aspects of the game.”
Tran was able to get his message across to the team the next day as Sunday’s match boasted a completely different outcome. The Lions won a three-set sweep against the Blues. It looked once again like the team going into the winter break.
Slow starts to sets that left York trailing early seemed to be a recurring theme against the Blues.
To compensate, the Lions were fierce in closing each set out. Brittney Hopley and Michelle Pierce dominated; a combined performance resulted in a a 7-0 point run in the third set after being down 9 to 7.
“I was happy with our serving and defense today,” Tran says. “We anticipated the rust coming off a seven-week break. We played well as a team, and our players stepped up.”
The Lions used time-outs efficiently and effectively, scoring after every time-out that they took. The team looked completely in sync and each player knew their role precisely.
“Our program is built for depth,” says Tran when asked about the loss of his two star players. “We showed that we are still extremely competitive without our star players.”
The post-hiatus rust was invisible against the Blues in what turned out to be a very exciting game for the audience.
With a final score of 27-25, 25-20, 25-19, the sets were competitive and fun to watch. The Lions, now 10-2 in the season, are preparing for their game against the Brock Badgers in St. Catharine’s on January 18.
Amjed Al-Slaman
Staff Writer
