MONTREAL – The McGill women’s volleyball team opened its preseason schedule with a completely revamped lineup, Friday. And when the dust settled, the Martlets came away with a 3-1 home-court victory over the MacEwan University Griffins, an Edmonton-based team from the Canada West conference. The set scores were 29-27, 17-25, 26-24 and 25-20.
Three Martlets reached double-digit scoring, paced by 16.5 points from newcomer Elyssa Lajmi, a six-foot power-hitter from France.
Teammate Giulia Ilies, a native of Romania who played CEGEP ball at College de Sherbrooke, was credited with 13.5 points and sophomore Emilia Grigorova, who hails from Bulgaria, added a dozen points.
Due to some preseason injuries, the Martlets only dressed one returning player, sophomore setter Selima Guidara, and 13 first-year players.
The new-look Martlets feature a training-camp roster composed of 13 freshmen, six sophomores, three juniors and two seniors.
“We’re not as tall as last year but were not bad in that area and we had three six-footers in the lineup today. We have good team agility which showed up in the game with solid passing and good defence on serve receive,” said Rachele Beliveau, who has returned for her 34th year behind the McGill bench. “So we created more opportunities for scoring.”
Beliveau indicated that the new team leadership group will feature three co-captains, with Montrealers Charlotte-Chouinard-Laliberte, a senior, and junior Rachel Leduc handling mostly on court duties, while Erin Keating, a senior from Deerfield, Ill., will oversee more administrative tasks, such as serving on the Varsity Council, fundraising efforts, etc.
After the game, the Griffins made the short jaunt around Mt. Royal to take on the Montreal Carabins, where they fell 3-2. MacEwan was scheduled for a return match with the Carabins on Sept. 28 before heading back to Alberta.
The Martlets (1-0) will continue their preseason schedule at the Queen’s invitational Tournament in Kingston, Ont., next week where they will play Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) on Oct. 4, followed by Queen’s (Oct. 5) and Acadia (Oct. 6). The RSEQ conference regular season opener is slated for Oct. 10, when UQTR will travel to Montreal to confront McGill in a 6:30 p.m. tip-off at Love Competition Hall.
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