Marauders are ready for Western
The Marauders men’s volleyball team took the long trip to Ohio State University, where they played two exhibition games against the Buckeyes.
The team came back to Hamilton with more experience under their sleeves, having lost both of the games in very different ways.
McMaster lost the first game in three sets. They managed to keep the score close in the last set, only losing 25-27, but their last stint of effort wasn’t enough to keep the match going.
In the next match on Saturday afternoon, the Marauders were able to shake off their last performance and come out with a bang.
In this match, the Marauders were able to rally the Buckeyes to five sets, showing their full potential on the court.
They lost the first two sets (20-25, 22-25), but then came back hard in the third set to out-score Ohio State by seven points, taking the set 25-18.
The Maroon and Grey managed to keep the momentum going strong in the fourth, winning the set narrowly with a score of 30-28.
In the fifth set, the Marauders weren’t able to hold off the powerful Buckeyes, and lost 15-10.
The leading scorers on the court for this match include Jori Mantha with 18.5 points, Jayson McCarthy with 16.5 points, and Brandon Koppers with 16.
McMaster was able to take a good amount of experience from the exhibition games against the 2011 NCAA national champions. Mac will look forward to using this experience in their first match, on Oct. 17 against the Western Mustangs.
“We want to make sure that we’re ready to go for the next weekend, that’s what we were focusing on, not neces- sarily going down and playing the Buckeyes,” said head coach Dave Preston.
With a couple of exhibition games behind them now, the Marauders currently sit at second overall in the CIS rankings, trailing behind the defending CIS Champions, the Alberta Golden Bears.
The Marauders will hope to bring the same tactics and plays that they did in the second game against the Buckeyes to the Burridge Gym on Friday night, where they will face their OUA and CIS rivals – the Western Mustangs.
This will be the first match against Western after the Mustangs crushed the Marauders gold medal hopes last season in the CIS semi-final.
