GUELPH, ON – They're still getting accustomed to their new home, but you wouldn't know it from how well the Guelph Gryphons women's volleyball team is playing.
They're still undefeated at the Guelph Gryphons Athletics Centre after a 3-0 sweep of the York Lions in OUA action on Saturday. The set scores were identical – 25-16, 25-16, 25-16.
It makes them 3-0 in the new building, which opened earlier this month, and it also gives them five consecutive match wins as they battle for playoff positioning in the OUA West Division.
"It's a great environment. It's a lot different from what we're used to playing in, but I think we've settled in well," said
Jessica Gormley, a third-year middle blocker from Georgetown, ON.
"It's a good vibe for everyone. Everyone likes playing here."
"We've adapted well to our new gym, for sure," head coach
Paul Funk said. "In our old gym, because it's so small, we didn't have a chance to track down a lot of balls defensively when the ball goes outside of the court. Here, we do, so we've been including that in part of our training, and our girls are responding really well to that."
York didn't put up too much of a fight on Saturday, and the one-sided match was over in a little more than an hour.
Victoria Golebiowski had nine digs and a game-high 11 kills, while
Maddie Dedecker had eight kills and six digs.
Libby Donevan added seven kills.
But it was the team's defence that really stood out.
Kayla McMullen led all players with 11 digs, but joked that Gormley prevented her from doing more.
"I was hoping to get more digs, but she kind of made it hard on us," said McMullen, a fourth-year libero from Aurora, ON. "She literally stopped everything from going over the net, so that was pretty awesome."
Gormley played "the game of her life," according to Funk. She had eight solo blocks and assisted on four others. No other Gryph was in on more than three blocks.
"Jess was pretty spectacular today in terms of her blocking. She really dominated the middle of the net and she didn't let a whole lot get through," the coach said. "And stuff that she did let get through, Kayla was there to pick it up. Between the two of them, they defended the court very well."
"I feel like if she was there, she would dig it," Gormley said of McMullen. "Everyone did a good job, it wasn't just me. Everyone played well today."
With Saturday's win, Guelph improves to 7-4, good for third place in the OUA West. York drops to 6-6 and is third in the East.
"We're finally finding our groove after the first half," McMullen said. "We had a little bit of trouble playing some of the top teams in the division in our first couple of games, but I think now we're finally starting to get our groove, and it's working pretty well."
The Gryphs will cap their month-long homestand on Sunday afternoon against the visiting Nipissing Lakers. Regardless of that outcome, the team will have reached the goal that it set at the beginning of January.
"We've been talking about 3-1 in this section (of matches)," Funk said. "And every time I say that to the girls, 'we want to go 3-1,' they always reply with, 'no, it's 4-0, coach.'
"And now we've got a shot at it tomorrow, but at least we got our three wins. We just want to try to keep the feeling that we have and the energy that we're bringing to the court right now."
