MONTREAL – Clara Poiréscored 16 points and Victoria Iannotti added 15.5 as McGill swept the UQTR Patriotes 3-0 in women’s volleyball at Love Competition Hall, Friday. The set scores were 25-19, 25-18 and 25-18 in a contest that took just 78 minutes to play.
The result was McGill’s third straight win and ninth consecutive victory on its home court. The team’s last nine-game win streak at home was in 2018-19, when they ended up 15-3 at Love Competition Hall. The contest also served as the team’s annual “Dig for the Cure” fundraiser for breast cancer and the Martlets were dressed in their pink uniforms as part of a national awareness campaign for this disease. Donations can be made at this link.
McGill had the edge in kills (42-31), aces (4-2), blocks (4-3) and digs (38-25).
“I don’t think that we played our best today,” revealed Rachèle Béliveau, in her 33rd year as head coach of the Martlets. “We didn’t play bad but it wasn’t the game we were expecting to play. At times, we peaked too fast and needed to calm down to be more in control and make better adjustments to how our opponent was playing.”
Poiré paced the Martlets offence with 14 kills with a pair of aces, in addition to a game-high eight digs on defence. Iannotti had 15 kills and an assisted stuff block, along with five digs.
Noemie Boulerice led the Patriotes with nine points, including eight kills.
The result improved McGill’s record to 12-5 and with four games remaining before playoffs, the Martlets could still finish anywhere from first to sixth place in the topsy-turvy eight-team conference. Only three wins separate the division leaders from sixth place. McGill is currently tied for second with Sherbrooke (12-6) but holds a game in hand. The Vert & Or did McGill a favour with a stunning 3-0 home-court win over division-leading Montreal (13-4) on Friday.
The Martlets (12-5) will now focus on a key road game at UQAM (10-7) on Sunday at 1 p.m. Then they will travel to UQTR (2-16) on Feb. 9 before closing out the regular season with home games against Ottawa (10-7) on Feb. 11 and Montreal (13-4) on Feb. 18.
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