Men’s Volleyball Finds Three Set Victory Over Warriors

In another three-set sweep, Queen’s Men’s Volleyball took down the Waterloo Warriors this Saturday evening in the ARC (26-24, 25-23, 25-19).

In the win, Reed Venning (Arts & Science) amassed 21 points from 16 kills, four service aces, and two assisted blocks. Venning also closed out the game with a hit percent of .481.

“In some sense when our team is down, especially now that one of our left sides was out this week, you kind of need someone to step into that role. I talked to Chris and said, ‘Hey, I’ll be your guy this weekend if you need anything just find me with the ball,'” Venning said.

Waterloo opened up the match strong, playing with the same fervor that they demonstrated in yesterday’s third set.

“Waterloo came out a lot better today. They served well, they played defense well, they blocked well,” Venning commented.  

“I think we needed to expect that they were going to battle harder right from the start. I don’t think we responded as well as we needed to based on the fact that we knew they were going to come out swinging,” Head Coach Gabe deGroot added.

The Warriors took the first five points of the first set before the Gaels responded with a kill from Venning, who followed it up with a service ace.

The rest of the first set was close, however the Gaels pulled ahead, aided by kills from Dax Tompkins (Arts) and Lachlan McBride (Law).

The second set was much like the first; The Gaels trailed before catching up and ultimately surpassing Waterloo.

“To be honest we shouldn’t have been in that second set if it weren’t for him and even the first set he was the only one who kind of held us in it so kudos to him,” deGroot remarked.

The Gaels followed up the first two sets with a more dominate third, finishing 25-19, and securing the win.

After a run of four home games, Queen’s Men’s Volleyball heads to York next weekend to take on the Lions. The Lions currently match Queens’ record of 7-1.

“We need to take some rest this week so I think a lot of our preparation will be on the tactical and game planning side of things. We know that they’re seven and one and they’re eager to play at home and they really like to play us. I think we just have to make sure that were rested, do our best to recover, and then have a good tactical plan to play them,” deGroot said.

The Gaels play on Friday, Nov. 22, at 8pm and Saturday Nov. 23, at 6pm. Fans can watch the action on oua.tv.