By Mia Ines
Coming off of a regular season that saw them finish with three consecutive wins, the Lancer women’s volleyball team is ready to match up against the Waterloo Warriors in the first round of the OUA playoffs Wednesday in Waterloo.
“After three wins in a row, we feel ready to compete,” states head coach Lucas Hodgson. “The team is feeling very good going into the playoffs.”
Windsor had gone into each game on the offensive attack, hitting .308, but with the Warriors also having good success and hitting .545, the Lancers will need to convert on their opportunities.
With such inconsistency due to COVID-19 restrictions and delays to the season, the blue and gold squad have had to look towards each other to remain accountable and resilient in and outside of training to get to the playoffs. But with so much more to prove, the Lancers are excited to continue to play into the post-season and face off the hosts, Warriors.
“We are trying to go through the same processes as a regular season game to keep the anxiety and butterflies low right now and are just focused on taking care of business at Waterloo,” explains Hodgson.
As the Lancers travel up to Waterloo, the team will hope to keep the winning streak alive and look towards a potential win to close out the season. Their opponent will not make it an easy task with players like outside hitter Sarah Glynn who ranks 2nd in kills per set (3.44). The blue and gold will gear up for an interesting match.
“Waterloo has had our number for a couple of years now and we feel we just have not had our best showing vs them,” says Hodgson. “It is always tough to beat a team 4 times in a row so we are just focused on breaking that little streak. Waterloo’s size and strong offense has always given us trouble and we are hoping that our speed and defense is counter that.”
Luckily for Windsor, players such as Emma Shepherd, Aryn Markett and Jordyn Brearly as starters and first years will bring the heat. As the Lancer squad are a very young team, the experience will benefit all the players and frankly, this is just a team for the entire team to go out there and just play for each other.
“Our goal is to take each game one at a time like we have been for the last couple of weeks,” emphasizes Hodgson. “We are competing in a very difficult division and our goal is to put the best effort out there and if we do that we will be very successful.”
The playoff game is underway when the Lancers travel up to the Warriors on Wednesday, March 9th at 6:00pm. The game will be broadcast live at OUA.tv!