The Laval Rouge et Or beat the Dalhousie Tigers in straight sets on Friday night in the Tigers first action of 2023.
The Rouge et Or got out to an early 6-1 lead in part to some great serving from Max Losier (Ottawa, ON). The Tigers were able to pull some points back off kills from Justin Cross (Winnipeg, MB) and Lucas Condon-Oldreive (Halifax, NS). Despite kills from Michael Donovan (London, ON) and Josh DeYoung (Halifax, NS), Laval was up 16-9 halfway through the set. The Tigers were able to close the gap late in the set, again off kills by Donovan and DeYoung as well as some luck, but ultimately it was not enough, and Laval won the set 25-18.
The second set started out well with DeYoung scoring back-to-back aces and a big block from Quinton Dowling (Waterloo, ON) and Condon- Oldreive. Laval’s Hugo Henderson (Quebec, QC) went to the service line and the Tigers struggled to match Laval’s play. The Rouge et Or went on a 11-1 point run with through the middle part of the set, until Sartaj Sidhu (Calgary, AB) stood up and hammered the ball down. Dalhousie and Laval traded points late in the set, but the gap was too large and the Rouge et Or won the second set 25-15.
The third set was much more evenly matched with the Tigers leading for much of it. Big kills from Donovan and Ted Graveson (Burnaby, BC) to put the Tigers up by 4 at the halfway point. The tides turned late in the set when Laval’s Losier went to the service line. Two aces and a couple of errors by Dalhousie had the Rouge et Or back in it and eventually winning the set. Laval won the third set 25-22.
Michael Donovan led the team with 11 kills in the loss. Losier and Nicolas Fortin (Clermont, QC) had a combined 28 kills for the Rouge et Or.
The teams return to the court on Saturday at 3:30pm AT.
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