GUELPH, Ont. – When the Guelph Gryphons men's volleyball team first saw that their 2018-19 schedule began with four straight home games, the first thought must have been to take advantage of some early home cooking to get off to a promising start to the new season. So far, with now two matches in the books, the Gryphons have done just that.
Friday night at the Guelph Gryphons Athletics Center, the Gryphons defeated the visiting York Lions 3-sets-to-1. Set scores were 24-26, 25-18, 25-21 & 26-24. With the win, the Gryphons improve to 2-0 on the young season following the team's home opener win over Waterloo a week ago.
"Performing well on our home court is something our guys take a lot of pride in and is something we've talked about quite a bit," says Gryphon head coach
Cal Wigston. "We added to our coaching staff this year with the addition of assistant Paul Hrkal, who was a standout player with Mac and our junior national program when he played. One of the messages Paul has really stressed with our guys is that, if you want to be great, you
have to protect home court. Fortunately we've been able to do that these first two games."
Helping lead the way on Friday night was Kitchener native
Zarko Ubiparip, who a season ago as a freshman showed great promise, earning a spot on the OUA West All-Rookie Team. Now as a sophomore, the 6-4 left side has continued to develop, and on Friday turned in a team-high 17 points on 12 kills.
Zach Newman was also solid, with 8 kills and just 1 error while
Matt Baxter added 8 kills and just 3 errors.
The Gryphons also dominated in the middle, racking up 13 stuff blocks as a team (compared to just 4 for York). Veteran middle blocker
Sam Nothnagel led the way up front, with the 6-7 Melbourne, Australia native recording a team-high 5 stuff blocks.
"Sam did such a great job for us tonight. York is such a dangerous team. They're so physical and jump so high. It was nice to see our guys step up tonight against a tough opponent like that."
The Gryphons (2-0) will complete their four-game season opening homestand next weekend (Nov. 10 and 11) when they host Western and Windsor.
