It was supposed to be the the Windsor Lancers breakthrough moment.
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It was supposed to be the match where the Windsor Lancers finally broke through.
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The top-seeded Lancers appeared poised for the first OUA men’s volleyball championship in school history.
Instead, the Lancers had to settle for second place after dropping the Forsyth Cup final in four sets on Friday to the second-seeded Queen’s Gaels, who took the match 3-1 by scores of 28-26, 25-21, 26-28 and 25-16 before a raucous crowd of 2,280 at the Toldo Lancer Centre.
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“Obviously, it’s a tough loss, especially at home,” Lancers’ fourth-year middle hitter Anthony Ivanovski said. “It’s hard, Queen’s is a great team. They just played really well.”
The Lancers had chances in this match. The team held an 11-6 lead on Queen’s in the first set, but could not close it out.
“It would have been really nice to have the first set,” Lancers’ head coach James Gravelle said. “I thought that the first set was hanging in the balance. I think (Queen’s) had 11 service errors in the first set. It was there for the taking.”
So was the second set where the Lancers jumped to a 7-3 lead only to see the Gaels rally to take a 2-0 lead.
“We had trouble stopping them,” said Gravelle, whose team still qualified for the national championship. “We’ve got to be better at blocking. I think we can really improve our block. It’s been the best part of our game all season and (Friday) it kind of let us down.”
The Gaels got 22 kills from six-foot-five outside hitter Zig Licis in the match and six-foot-five outside hitter Reed Venning added 15 kills.
“(Licis), was good,” said the six-foot-six Ivanovski, who had seven kills, three service aces and two blocks. “He put a lot of balls to the floor.”
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Queen’s took the first four points of the third set, but the Lancers, who came in 12-0 at home this season, battle back to pull to within a set.
“Good to battle back and not quit in the third set and proud of the boys for staying in the fight,” Gravelle said.
But the Gaels jumped to a 9-1 lead in the fourth set and Windsor could never get closer than four points for the rest of the set.
“We just got off to such a terrible start in the fourth set,” Gravelle said. “Just dug too much of a hole.
“It’s OK to let it hurt. Some mistakes were made. It wasn’t our best night for sure. We were the second-best team in the gym.”
And so, the Lancers had to settle for a silver medal for the second time in three years, but Gravelle does not want his team to forget the season’s success to bring the conference final to Windsor for the first time.
“The work that they put in and the body of work created the conditions (for a title) for the first time in this building,” Gravelle said. “The moment was big and the gym was on fire.”
The Lancers, who will host next year’s national championship, will head to Brandon, Man. for this year’s U Sports eight-team championship tournament, which runs March 21-23.
jpparker@postmedia.com
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