By: Coby Zucker
Coming into the Ontario University Athletics playoffs as the fourth-ranked team in Canada puts a target on your back. Add to that a record-breaking six-year stretch where McMaster has taken home the Forsyth Cup for first place in the OUA playoffs, and you now know which team is the one to beat.
And yet, pressure is nothing new for head coach Dave Preston who has been leading the team since 2002.
“The way our program and the way I deal with [pressure] is that I don't think that there's anybody outside of our team room that expects more out of our program than us,” said coach Preston. “So I think when teams start to feel pressure, it's because the external expectations become greater than what the internal expectations can handle. There isn't anybody who expects more out of us than us. So pressure is not an issue.”
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Playing on such a decorated team, it is safe to assume the Marauders have lofty expectations for themselves with none loftier than those of fifth-year hitter Andrew Richards, who will be playing in his fifth and final OUA playoffs this season. Richards welcomes the competition and the opportunity to leave it all on the floor.
“I definitely know teams want to beat us with our history of having the success that we've had in Ontario,” said Richards. “I'm sure it would be a sweet feeling for someone to try and knock us off but that motivates us even more to know that any time we play a team they're going to bring the best they have and they're going to be motivated to take us down. So it's something that we welcome almost. We want other teams to play their best, which in turn will make us play our best.”
One game into their playoff run, the Marauders’ opponents’ bests have not been good enough. The York University Lions certainly looked motivated this past Saturday coming into Burridge Gym taking the first set 25-27, but their momentum was quickly stifled.
The Marauders proceeded to take the next three sets (25-23, 25-15, 25-19) in a mirror of their last meeting with the Lions in the regular season. Next, it is onto Kingston to face the University of Windsor Lancers for the semi-finals on March 8.
♂️🏐 | RECAP
@MACMVB edged a tight second set and powered on from there, beating York in four sets to advance to the @ouasport Final Four for the ninth straight year. #GoMacGo
READ ⬇️https://t.co/20sI8BdneC
— McMaster Marauders (@McMasterSports) March 3, 2019
For the first time in seven years, McMaster will not be hosting the OUA Final Four due to formatting changes that no longer guarantee home court for the overall highest-seeded team. Continuing their seven-year streak will potentially require they face off in the finals against the Queen’s University Gaels, the only team against whom the Marauders have a losing record in the regular season, in Queen’s own gym.
“We've kind of adapted to this road warrior mentality where we'll go into anyone's gym and do our thing,” said Richards. “We sort of feel comfort in the sense of being uncomfortable, if that make sense? We want to sleep in hotels, we want to play in different gyms, we want to be in front of other fans. It's just the kind of identity our team's going to take on here in the playoffs.”
It remains to be seen how the Marauders will adapt to this wrinkle in their era of dominance. They certainly still have all the tools they need to succeed, including seasoned players, a veteran coach and an all-star-calibre player in Richards who, along with fellow fifth-years Connor Santoni and Jeffrey Driediger, is looking to put his final stamp on a McMaster legacy. The Marauders themselves are not lacking in confidence.
“I love the way our guys are playing right now,” said coach Preston. “I love our style. I think we probably have another level or two left in us to play at. But the way our guys play? The style we play? The passion that we play with? It's everything a coach could ask for.”
Competition remains tough as the Marauders head into their final weekend of the OUA post-season, with the Lancers, the Gaels and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues all looking to displace the reigning champions. It all goes down March 8 and 9 in Kingston.
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The McMaster men’s volleyball team is heading to the Ontario University Athletics volleyball semifinals for the 15th-straight season. After defeating the York University Lions 3-1 in the OUA quarter-finals, the Marauders are heading into the Final Four ranked fifth in the nation.
Several Marauders were also honoured with OUA recognition, with outside hitter Matt Passalent taking home the highest honour, OUA West Player of the Year. Fifth-year Andrew Richards took home the Dale Iwanoczko Award for his work off the court. Passalent and Richards were both named First Team All-Stars, while Craig Ireland was named to the Second Team. First-year middle Tyler Pavelic’s season was recognized with a spot on the All-Rookie team.
With six straight OUA titles, the journey to their seventh begins this weekend when the Marauders face the University of Windsor Lancers in a semi-final match-up. If they win, they will go on to play in the final game for the OUA Forsyth Cup. The game will be on Saturday, March 9 at 1 p.m. at Queen’s University.
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After defeating the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees in the OUA finals to capture the Critelli Cup, the Marauders are heading to Ryerson University to play in the U Sports National Championships for the second-straight season. With the No. 2 seed in the tournament, the Marauders will face the No. 7 Concordia University Stingers.
Led by Critelli Cup game MVP Hilary Hanaka, the Marauders hope to see a different result in this year's National Championships compared to last year. The ladies headed out to Regina last year where they unfortunately did not finish where they wanted to. Losing in the first round to McGill University, the Marauders were not prepared for the level of play, but are hoping to see different results this time around.
Already defeating the Carleton University Ravens during the 2019 OUA semi-finals, who were also the 2018 U Sports Champions, the idea of going straight to the top does not seem so far off. Tip-off time is at 12 p.m. Thursday, March 7.
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Ameen Aghamirian, Men’s Wrestling
This weekend, the McMaster wrestling team attended the Ontario University Athletics Wrestling Championships and, for the fourth year in a row, the men took home silver overall. Aghamirian’s dominance on the mats earned him national recognition, as he was U Sports Male Athlete of the Week.
Congratulations to Ameen Aghamirian, our U SPORTS Male Athlete of the Week! 🤼♂️
Félicitations à Ameen Aghamirian, l'athlète de la semaine masculin de U SPORTS! 🤼♂️
🔗 EN: https://t.co/lK7hWCGOAs // 🔗 FR: https://t.co/neIdzK39lW pic.twitter.com/CFkke2MPeV
— U SPORTS (@USPORTSca) February 6, 2019
Aghamirian helped his team by winning gold in the 82 kg weight class. He defeated the Lakehead University Voyageurs’ Brody Evans and the York University Lions’ Jasman Gill due to technical superiority, and beat the University of Guelph Gryphons’ Simon Chaves 6-1.
This victory took him to the divisional final where he defeated the Western University Mustangs’ Brandon Amboto by tiebreaker after a 5-5 match due to a higher number of takedowns. His efforts from the weekend led him to be named McMaster’s Pita Pit Athlete of the Week. Next up, Aghamirian and the Marauders prepare for the U Sports championships on Feb. 22-23.
Stinellis made Marauders history after taking home the OUA Rookie of the Year earlier this season. The Pita Pit Athlete of the Week is the first female wrestler to win the award since it began in 2008. Stinellis took the 48kg weight class by storm, pinning all three of her opponents: Voyageurs’ Megan Smith, Lions’ Gurleen Tak and former medalist, Western’s Christine Grafe. In the finals, she, unfortunately, was pinned by the Gryphons’ vet Natassya Lu, and walked away with a silver medal. Her efforts helped the Marauders place fifth overall and secured her spot at the U Sports Wrestling Championships.
This weekend, the men’s volleyball team’s victory had two co-stars leading it. The duo helped lead the Marauders to a 3-1 defeat over the University of Waterloo Warriors on the road. Both Richards and Passalent finished the game with 16 kills, with Richards adding four aces and one block assist to the stat sheet, and Passalet adding two aces and two total blocks. The defeat bumped the men up to fourth place nationally, improving to a 10-2 OUA regular season record. Up next, the team will host the Nipissing University Lakers and the Lions for their final home matches of the regular season. The Saturday, Feb. 9, will be a special Pride celebration, followed by a showdown with York the next day.
Gates was once again an on-the-court leader this weekend in Mac’s 65-41 defeat over the Western Mustangs. With a game-high 19 points and 8 rebounds, putting her just two shy of a double-double. The 2018 OUA Rookie of the Year has been performing extremely well this season and is on track to being named an OUA all-star. The victory helped the team move up to third place in the U Sports national rankings, and first place in the OUA West, clinching a playoff berth. Gates and the Marauders will head to Algoma University this weekend to take on the Thunderbirds.
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Mac students tap into Hamilton's potential
By their fourth year of university, most McMaster students would hope to be on track to earn their degree, have some work experience and be prepared to graduate without too much debt.
Mohamed El Mahallawy has something better.
The fourth-year Psychology and Economics student is CEO and founder of his own business, called Nervu, that won third place on Oct. 4 in Hamilton’s Lion’s Lair competition.
The Lion’s Lair contest, which has a premise similar to that of CBC’s Dragon’s Den, offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their business idea to a panel of local business owners in the hopes of earning start-up funds.
The prize? Fifteen thousand dollars.
He and two fellow McMaster students Bilal Husain and Shawn McTigue developed the business and chose to pitch it in the competition, organized by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce and Innovation Factory.
And in fact, it was Innovation Factory, a Hamilton not-for-profit organization funded by the Ontario Network of Excellence, that helped get his business started through Innovation Night, a networking event for local startups.
“I shot a few ideas here and there with my dad and my friends, but I never really had the guts to do it,” El Mahallawy explained. “Once I found out about Innovation Night, and I actually went … I realized maybe my idea actually had some potential. Why not maybe go out and pursue it?”
El Mahallawy said that at first, Lion’s Lair didn’t seem accessible for him as a student, since no students had ever entered before.
“When we first became a client [at Innovation Factory] we thought, no way, it’s never going to happen, [but] Lion’s Lair was an open window that we … just tried.”
Their company, Nervu, is a text-message based service that allows its users to choose brands in order to receive notifications about sales or deals they have.
El Mahallawy and his colleagues, who all hail from the GTA, had good things to say about Hamilton as an incubator for new businesses.
“Hamilton is no longer the ‘armpit of Ontario,’” he said. “The only thing is, we don’t have a very thriving economy. And that’s why I think [that] entrepreneurship in Hamilton, that’s really key … [it] creates jobs … and that grows and puts Hamilton on the map.”
He feels that McMaster, on the other hand, could afford to offer more encouragement and support to entrepreneurs.
Recognizing that significant funds and resources are dedicated to medical and scientific research, El Mahallawy said, “there’s not really any resources or any help for startups.” He also claims the school lacks “incubation space.”
McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering is one area, outside of the undergraduate commerce program, that offers entrepreneurship support in an academic setting. As of last fall, the faculty offers an entrepreneurship stream through the faculty’s five-year Engineering and Management program.
The optional specialization is meant to give undergrads “the opportunity to test the feasibility of new business start-up ideas while they are introduced to the concepts and tools used for new business creation.”
The Engineering and Management program was unavailable for comment.
“I believe it is more of a science school, as well as an engineering [school] so it’d be nice to see entrepreneurship and resources and whatnot here,” El Mahallawy said of Mac.
Whether or not McMaster is providing similar support to students, El Mahallawy, Husain and McTigue will walk away from this experience happy.
“It really taught us a lot, from things like what to wear in front of a camera, how to speak to a journalist, to … organizing our pitch and whatnot.”
And what of their $15,000?
“We’ll be using it to accelerate the development [of Nervu],” said El Mahallawy.
Brandon Meawasige
Assistant Sports Editor
Stepping onto the practice field Tuesday night, members of the McMaster men’s soccer team could be heard exclaiming “We’re ranked! We’re ranked!” among various other expletives and confident words.
The men are jubilant for good reason as well; the Marauders are the newest members of the 2011 CIS top ten national men’s soccer rankings, coming in at no. 7.
McMaster earned the honor after becoming the first team to defeat the defending national champion York Lions this season. The two teams faced off last Friday at Ron Joyce with the maroon and grey shutting out their heavyweight opponent 2-0.
"It was a great result, we worked hard preparing for the game, it was good to go out there and beat the best team in the country, we worked hard and it was good to show everyone in the OUA that we can compete at this level, it is good for us," fourth-year goalkeeper Matt Grant said this week at practice.
The Marauders not only physically outmatched the Lions, but mentally as well.
"We got a red card early, and it ended up being a scrappy game. They were getting frustrated; we out played them the whole game. I don't think they were expecting a close game from us, because they usually go out there with the confidence of being the best team in the country," said Grant.
The Marauders have gained a tremendous confidence from the York victory, and they tried to take that swagger to the field against the Guelph Gryphons on Saturday at home.
Unfortunately, the game did not yield a result that would continue the jubilance. After 90 minutes of good soccer and a beautiful Guelph strike, the game ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw.
"Guelph was a missed opportunity for us to jump ahead in the standings, which are very close. First and third place are separated by four points,” said Grant.
The Marauders may even be further ahead in the standings if not for a mid season draw with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Ridgebacks. However during that game McMaster was missing some key players including team Captain Anthony Costa, who scored against York, surely contributing to the 0 - 0 draw.
After that game, Costa offered a prediction for the upcoming trip to Oshawa to play an away game at UOIT. Surely looking to send a message, Costa shared his feelings on the upcoming rematch.
“I’ll say this, when we go over there, it is going to be a completely different story,” Costa warned.
With only four games remaining on the schedule against traditionally softer opponents, Costa and the rest of the team have a chance to solidify themselves atop the OUA West and possibly even climb the National rankings.
"It’s great to be nationally ranked through the middle of the season. It’s a great feeling. We’ll be looking to continue to climb the rankings and prove to the country that were not a one-trick pony," said Grant.
Although the triumph marks large step in the right direction, beating the defending national champions during the season is different from a national championship.
The fact of a win like that however, is now the team carries with it the expectations that come with entering the picture as a national powerhouse.
Whether the team can live up to the bar they have set for themselves is a completely different story. One that will continue to write itself as the regular season concludes and the daring road to the championship begins. Playing each of the remaining teams once earlier in the season, the Marauders have scored 13 goals allowing only one in those four games.
Up next for McMaster are the Brock Badgers whom they will host this Friday, Oct. 14 at Ron Joyce Stadium. Last time the two teams faced off in St. Catharines, the Marauders looked like a championship contender, winning 4-1.
