MONTREAL – Clara Poire scored a game-high 13.5 points and Melanie Dormann added a dozen a McGill coasted to a 3-0 victory over the visiting Ottawa Gee-Gees in RSEQ women’s volleyball at Love Competition Hall, Friday. The set scores were 25-22, 25-20 and 25-18.
It was the Martlets 19th victory in the past 20 regular season games versus Ottawa dating back to January 2017.
McGill had the edge in kills (35-31) and blocks (9-4), while Ottawa held an 8-4 margin in service aces. Both teams had identical totals in assists (30) and digs (42).
“It was a good team effort as we had contributions from a variety of people,” said McGill head coach Rachele Beliveau. “We stuck to our game plan fairly well but still need to work with better cohesion. We have had to move a number of people around in different positions due to injuries.
For the third straight contest, McGill was missing the services of two key starters, namely power-hitter Victoria Iannotti and middle blocker Meaghan Smith, with undisclosed ailments. Both are considered day-to-day. Also out, for the second straight contest, was injured Rio Pesochin, a third-year power-hitter.
Poire, a fifth-year kinesiology senior from Blainville, Que., had 10 kills, one service ace and 2.5 stuff blocks. The six-foot-2 right-side hitter added five digs and one assist.
Dorman, an anatomy senior from Ottawa, also had 10 kills, to go along with one ace, a block and three digs.
Masha Solaja, a senior from Toronto, led the team in service receive with a 2.0 (out of three) and added six digs and three kills. Senior Brook Brown of Key Largo, Fla., contributed two blocks, four assisted blocks and seven digs, in addition to a pair of kills and five assists.
The Martlets will have one day of preparation before hosting the Montreal Carabins in a rematch on Sunday at 1 p.m. The bitter rivals clashed at the Centre CEPSUM last Sunday and Montreal came away with a hard-fought, back-and-forth decision, winning 26-24, 25-27, 27-25 and 26-24.