MONTREAL – Victoria Iannotti scored 22 points and Clara Poiré added 21.5 as McGill rallied to outlast the Montreal Carabins 3-2 in a marathon RSEQ women’s volleyball semifinal rubber match at Love Competition Hall, Sunday.
The tightly-contested confrontation between two warriors took two hours and 25 minutes to play. The Martlets prevailed by set scores of 20-25, 25-20, 27-25, 27-29 and 15-11.
Second-seeded McGill (12-6, 2-1), the defending conference champions, will now advance to meet top-seeded UQAM (13-5, 2-0) in a best-of-three battle for the Quebec crown, March 3-5. More importantly, both RSEQ finalists have earned a berth to the U SPORTS Final Eight national championship, slated to be held at UBC in Vancouver, March 17-19.
“What a game, that was outstanding volleyball by both teams and probably one of the greatest matches for us ever, as far as I can remember,” said McGill head coach Rachèle Béliveau, who collected her 699th career victory in 31 seasons at the Martlets helm. “The calibre and strength of the hits, the defence on both sides. It was like wow! This ranks right up there and it was a total team effort. We needed everyone to contribute for a win today and that’s what we got.”
Gabrielle Fortin scored 33 points, including 27 kills, in a losing cause for the Carabins. Teammate Maude Babin added 20.5 points, 18 of them on kills.
Iannotti, a veteran power-hitter from St. Laurent., Que., scored her 22 points on the strength of 18 kills, a pair of service aces and two stuff blocks. The software engineering senior added one assist and eight digs on defence.
Poiré, a southpaw who plays on the right-side, posted equally impressive numbers. The kinesiology senior from Blainville, Que., registered 16 kills, 5.5 blocks and eight digs.
The dynamic duo was among four Martlets to attain double-digit scoring, along with senior Charlene Robitaille(12 pts) of St. Jean, Que., and senior Melanie Dormannof Ottawa, who came off the bench to tally 11.5 points.
Senior Catherine Verchevalof Ste. Julie, Que., had a superb game at the libero position, collecting a career-high 32 digs, in addition to one kill and two assists.
Charlotte Chouinard-Laliberte, a psychology sophomore from Montreal, racked up 46 assists while filling in at setter for the sixth consecutive start and has surpassed the 30-assist plateau in each of her starts. She was holding the fort for Audrey Trottier, who has remained out of the lineup since being injured early in a game against UQTR on Feb. 5.
As a team, McGill registered single-game season highs in kills (61), assists (60), digs (89) and stuff blocks (16). Perhaps the most telling statistic in the game was the hitting efficiency, where McGill succeeded on 26.2 per cent of their kill attempts after making only 13 errors. By comparison, the Carabins made 32 errors and posted an 18.1 per cent success rate.
“What I like about out team over the past two seasons is that we never quit, we can come back,” Béliveau said. “We have shown a lot of fight and character on the court and have overcome a lot of adversity.”
Looking ahead to the league final against UQAM, the Citadins swept their semifinal series over fourth-seeded Sherbrooke, winning both by 3-1 scores. UQAM won their first two regular season meetings with McGill this season by identical 3-1 scores but the Martlets swept the last rendezvous 3-0 at home on Feb. 17.
“It’s not about how much we will practice this week to be ready for the league championship,” noted Béliveau. “It’s now more about recovery, preparation and our mental game.”
The upcoming RSEQ league championship series is another best-of-three affair, which opens at UQAM on Friday (Mar. 3), returns to McGill on Saturday evening and if needed, returns to UQAM for a Sunday matinee. Times are not yet confirmed but will likely be updated here on Monday. Tickets will be sold online only, beginning Tuesday.
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