Langley, B.C. - The Varsity Reds men’s volleyball team lost in three straight sets to Laval Rouge et Or 18-25, 14-25, 25-27 in the opening quarter final match at the CIS men’s volleyball championship hosted by Trinity Western University at the Langley Events Centre on Friday afternoon.
The number two ranked team Laval, who earlier captured their sixth straight QSSF championship dominated the first two sets but were surprised when the Varsity Reds, AUS champions, came out for the third set more confident and played them point for point throughout the game.
It was clearly a case of the nerves and a learning experience for the V-Reds in only their second appearance at a CIS Championship since 1979 (previous 2009). UNB got the first point on the scoreboard but then dropped five to Laval and as the Rouge et Or crept to 22 the V-Reds rallied to put several straight points on the scoreboard but unfortunately dropped the first set 18-25.
“There were a lot of nerves there in the first two sets and we definitely weren’t the team we’ve seen over the last few weeks – I talked to the guys about the fact that part of the nationals experience is getting these kinds of game experiences,” said McMorran.
In the third, setter Andrew Costa went in to replace Stephane Fontaine as UNB hung with Laval the whole way, leading at the first technical timeout 8-7 and the second technical timeout 16-15. “He’s a guy who lives and breathes volleyball and to make setters change in the middle of a CIS first round game is a tough thing for a guy to come off the bench and do but I know that Andrew would be up to the task and he had that spark and life that we seemed to be missing at the beginning,” continued McMorran.
The V-Reds definitely settled into their own game and had some big plays. They did have a chance to win the set at 25-24 but were unable to finish the Rouge et Or off as the Laval squad took the last three straight points 25-27.
“ Laval is definitely a team that we had to play close to our best game in order to be in the match and we had a great opportunity to win had we played our best ball. What it boiled down to in the first two sets is that we didn’t execute we had what I thought was a very good game plan. In the third set we actually did follow it – up until the last three points,” said McMorran. “I was pleased that we were able bounce out of that funk and play a pretty good level of ball.”
Julio Fernandez made several big plays over the course of the match and led the team with 10 kills while both Stephane Fontaine and Andrew Costa each had 14 assists.
The Varsity Reds will meet the loser of the Brandon/McMaster series at 1:00 pm on Saturday and McMorran feels that his guys are ready and will bounce back. In the dressing room after the game McMorran talked to the team about the game plan.
”There are four things we have to commit to - be aggressive, have to execute, make individual plays, and think team. We need a little bit of work with #1 and #2 - it was a good wake-up call that those four points are the areas that we need to really commit to as we go into our next match.”
Maureen Sparks, UNB SID