MONTREAL – Sabrina Mayer racked up a league-wide season-high 34 points, on the strength of 29 kills, as the UQAM Citadins surprised No. 10-ranked McGill 3-1 in a women’s volleyball thriller, Sunday, at the Centre Sportif de l’UQAM. The set scores were 25-23, 23-25, 27-25 and 25-23 in a hard-fought confrontation that took two hours and seven minutes to decide a victor.
It was a critical victory for UQAM (9-6) and a costly loss for the Martlets (9-5), who both sit in a tightly-packed three-way tie with Sherbrooke (9-6) for the fourth and final playoff berth. The Montreal Carabins lead the eight-team RSEQ conference with an 11-3 record, followed by Laval and Ottawa, who both own identical 10-6 records.
“We didn’t play that bad but we were below our standard in a few areas and when that happens in a close game, it is costly,” said McGill head coach Rachele Beliveau, whose troops were struggling with a flu bug this week. “We were below our season average for hitting efficiency in kills and in service aces, where they had a 13-5 advantage. That’s an eight-point advantage right there for UQAM and each of the three sets we lost were by two points.
McGill had 48 kills but 22 hitting errors on 149 attempts to end up with a 17.4 per cent hitting efficiency, compared to the team’s season average of 22.5 per cent. UQAM had the upper-hand in kills (56-48) and a 70-68 edge in digs. Both teams were credited with eight stuff blocks.
The game was delayed about four minutes on the opening sequence, before a point was even scored, after the Citadins lost the services of team captain Anica Pineault, who was injured in a head-to-shoulder collision with Laura Cote-Collin, the team’s libero.
The aforementioned Mayer was one of three Citadins to reach double figures, along with Juliette Gosselin (13) and Erlande Dacillia ().
McGill and UQAM have now split their regular season series 1-1, with the Citadins holding a 5-4 edge in sets won. They will cross paths one more time, at UQAM on Feb. 4.
McGill has seven games left before post-season play, beginning with a six-hour road trip to Chicoutimi, Jan. 26-27, where they will play twice against the UQAC Inuk (0-15), an expansion team in the RSEQ conference.