St. Catharines, ON – The Women’s Volleyball team travelled to Brock Wednesday evening for the OUA West Division Final, ultimately falling in straight sets to Brock.
A five-set win against second-place McMaster Saturday night solidified a date with Brock for the semifinal on the way to the Quigley Cup, who beat Waterloo in straight sets to get there themselves.
Brock and Western faced off twice in the regular season, with the ‘Stangs dropping both matchups. The Badgers have yet to lose a game this season, while the purple and white finished third place in the OUA West with a 7-5 record.
OUA West MVP Janelle Albert led the way for Western with 15 kills, while Lauren Pastor registered 30 assists.
The first set proved to be a close one, with the Mustangs falling just short of completing the comeback.
The undefeated hosts got off to a quick 4-1 lead with the backing of an electric home crowd. Captain Kate Van Camp would cut the deficit to 3 at 9-6 with a cheeky play, but the Badgers would continue to extend their lead with the scoreboard reading 16-10 at the technical timeout.
The purple and white would claim the next three points after the timeout, but would have their streak end after a crazy rally with valiant efforts from both sides that went the way of the Badgers.
Jaeya Brach would tie things up at 18, and Lauren Pastor and Lexi Iggulden would help tie things up again at 20. A Badgers error would give Western the lead a moment later, as the team’s continued to exchange points and keep things close.
Albert would give set-point to the Mustangs, but they were unable to close it out. Western ultimately dropped the set 27-25 in a hard-fought battle.
“I think that because Brock has had such an outstanding season, going into this game we knew that we had to fight for it and that it wasn’t going to be any easy game whatsoever,” said captain Kate Van Camp. “We came into it with the mindset that this is it, put everything on the line for the game, and I think we did do that especially in the first two sets. We fought really hard.”
The second set was another close affair, with Western getting out to an early 3-1 lead. Brock’s powerful offence would claw back, keeping the ‘Stangs on their feet. Two big blocks from Albert would solidify a 14-13 score, forcing a timeout from the hosts.
Despite the effort and with Albert saving set point, the Badgers would take the set 25-22.
“Brock has a very balanced offence. If you look at the stat sheet they had 5 different players with 7 plus kills so that puts a lot of strain on our defence,” said coach Melissa Bartlett. “I thought we had a great game plan and we executed on bits of it, but they came to play tonight and they earned that match and they were the better team tonight.”
The third set saw an exchange of points, before Brock started to build a steady lead. The Mustangs couldn’t fight back and saw their season come to a conclusion with a Brock 25-17 third set win.
“We are disappointed because we know we had more to give and that’s always tough to finish your season that way,” said Bartlett. “To [Brock’s] credit that’s a fantastic team and I think they are going to represent our conference really well at Nationals and we wish them the best of luck.”
Despite the season coming to an end, the Mustangs reflect on a season filled with unprecedented moments and the conducive challenges it brought, but also times of positivity, growth, and friendship.
While getting off to an undefeated start to the season, a COVID pause saw a return filled with adversity.
“With COVID it’s been so difficult to build that type of team cohesion we need. Volleyball is such a mental game and you need that trust in yourselves and your teammates,” said Van Camp. “We started out really strong but then had the postponement, had to go home, reset, and we came back and didn’t know what to do with ourselves.”
“We didn’t know at Christmas if we were even going to return to competition, so we are grateful we have these opportunities together,” added Bartlett.
Despite a tough start to the return to play, the women worked hard to secure a playoff spot, eventually making it into the final four.
“There were some players who showed some extreme improvement, we had some really tough moments as a team too where we had to develop some resilience,” said Bartlett. “There’s a lot of learning moments we can take from this season. It’s been a season of ups and downs but there are a lot of positives and a lot of highlights to remember as well.”
“I’m really proud of the team for coming together, we worked really hard to get into the final four,” added Van Camp.
And while the season has only just ended, the players are already gearing up for next season.
“This season was a really good building season for us,” concluded Van Camp. “We are going to come back pushing harder next season.”
And as the bus exited St. Catharines to return to London, the team continued to reflect on their journey and the bond that has carried them this season, with the itch for next season beginning to grow.