MONTREAL – McGill power-hitter Charlene Robitaille registered her 500th career kill but UQAM spoiled the celebration with a 3-1 victory in RSEQ women’s volleyball first-place showdown at the Centre Sportif, Friday. The Citadins won by set scores of 25-16, 25-13, 21-25 and 26-24.
Robitaille, a six-foot middle blocker from St. Jean, Que., entered the game needing only one kill to reach the 500 plateau and ended up with eight for an updated total of 507 in 65 regular season games and 250 sets played over her four seasons. A 25-year-old certificate student in management who returned after graduating with a science degree in 2022, she is the fourth member of the Martlets to reach the 500 club, joining Wendy Whelan (1995-1998), Jennifer Thomson (2005-2010) and Kelsey Irwin (2007-2011)
It was a disappointing setback for the Martlets, who could have found themselves in a three-way tie atop the conference standings with UQAM and Montreal. Instead, the Citadins moved to the head of the class with an 11-4 record, while Montreal sits second at 10-4, followed by McGill in third at 9-5. Four games remain before playoffs, including the season finale at home against the Citadins.
UQAM, which improved to 2-0 against the Martlets this season, had the upper-hand in kills (60-42), stuff blocks (10-7) and digs (78-65), while McGill had an 8-7 edge in service aces. The most telling metric was in the hitting efficiency, where UQAM had a 28.6 per cent success rate, compared to McGill’s 14.6.
“It’s hard to come up with an answer on our slow start over the first two sets, perhaps we were a little nervous,” said a disappointed head coach Rachele Beliveau. “We didn’t serve very hard until the third set and then we were much more aggressive in our attack but we ran out of time. UQAM played well, they were strong in passing, dug a lot of balls that were tough ones to dig and they didn’t make many mistakes.”
Four members of the Citadins reached double-digits in scoring, led by 27.5 points from Sabrina Mayer. Rounding out the other leading scorers was Anica Pineault (14.5), Laura Cote-Colin (13.5) and Erlande Dacolia (11). Noemie Gagne, the UQAM setter, racked up an impressive 55 assists.
Clara Poireof Blainville, Que., paced the Martlets with 14.5 points, followed by Victoria Iannotti(11.5) of St. Laurent, Que., the aforementioned Robitaille (9), Meaghan Smith(8.5) of Vancouver, B.C., and Brook Brown(8) of Clearwater, Fla.
Martlets setter Audrey Trottier, a senior from Longueuil, Que., was credited with 24 assists and needs just four more to reach the team’s 1,000 assist club. She also added eight digs, 1.5 blocks and one ace.
McGill (9-5) will host seventh-place UQTR (2-12) on Sunday (Feb. 5) in a 1 p.m. Black History Month matinee at Love Competition Hall.
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