BY NATALIA CAMARENA
Since the beginning of the winter semester the Sheridan Bruins’ women’s volleyball team (6-7 OCAA) have gotten off to a tough start, dropping three of their last four games.
At the end of the fall semester they ended on a three-game winning streak but they haven’t been able to maintain that momentum this year.
The Lady Bruins lost a tough five set match against St. Clair (7-6 OCAA) on Saturday, losing 3-2 (21-25, 28-26, 25-22, 21-25, 15-9).
The Lady Bruins started the night off strong, making fast decisions and rallying together for a quick win in the first set. However, as the match progressed it was clear that the Saints weren’t going down without a fight.
In two of the three sets the Bruins had an open window to win, but they weren’t able to pull it together when they needed to.
“I thought we played well until the game mattered,” said head coach Scott Hunt. “We weren’t able to perform at a high enough level.”
Even when the Bruins had a significant lead over the Saints they just weren’t able to score the final points to close the set, making silly mistakes and missing serves.
“At the end of the day we still had a chance to win three of the five sets that we didn’t win,” said Hunt. “We didn’t execute what we could have, so at the end of the day we didn’t get the result we deserved.”
While this was a tough loss, there were still signs of improvement on the court.
“We need to work on decision making,” said assistant coach Kaila Wiley.
She explained for the Lady Bruins to be successful, “They must act quickly when passing, taking shots and making the best decision in each situation.”
The Bruins may not have attained their desired outcome, but there was evidence of improvement.
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Dimitra Stathakos and Joelle Parnham both had an excellent game. Stathakos has been averaging 3.6 points per set this season, and certainly came out strong on the weekend scoring 19 points. Parnham followed with 18 of her own.
“Joelle set a really good game,” said Hunt. “Dimitra was able to score a lot of points for us, she’s been leading us most of the season.”
With playoffs just a month away, the margin for error is getting smaller. If the Lady Bruins plan on making the playoffs again this year they’re really going to have to take charge of their next few games.
The women’s next game is Jan. 31. at Boréal College (0-13 OCAA), a team they beat 3-0 (24-26, 9-25, 22-25) in December.
Take a closer look at some of the picture from the game below:
