WINDSOR – The Guelph Gryphons women's volleyball team is in the OUA playoffs. Capping one of the biggest turnarounds of any OUA team this year, the Gryphons went on the road and dominated the Windsor Lancers 3-0 (25-10, 25-22, 25-17) to clinch a postseason berth on the final day of the schedule.
 
Guelph overcame a 1-8 start and won eight of its last 10 matches to finish the season 9-10 for third place in the OUA West, earning an opening round playoff matchup in Toronto next week.

"I've never had a year like this where we've come back from this big a deficit," said head coach Paul Funk, figuring the only comparison was a one-win Gryphon team in his first year taking nine in his second year. "This season is unique.

"They've really bought into our philosophy. We're trying to keep things fairly simple in terms of choices on the court. They've done that and the girls are taking pride in that they are becoming a much tougher team to play against."

Michaela Hellinga led the way with 12 kills, while seniors Libby Donevan and Jessica Gormley helped prolong their Gryphon careers by combining for 9 blocks.
 
Guelph looked motivated from the beginning, cruising to take the first set. It was a tougher struggle in the second but the Gryphons withstood some impressive Windsor runs to go up 2-0 on a Donevan kill.
 
They closed looking like a group ready for playoff competition. At 20-16, libero Tara Tanasijevic made one of her team-high 12 digs to extend an already lengthy point, which eventually ended on a Lancers attack error. Guelph took the next five points, with Donevan making a huge block to get it to 24-17 and Hellinga producing another trademark powerful kill to send her team into the postseason.

"As a group today, we started very well," said Funk. "The atmosphere was actually pretty playoff-like, a fairly big crowd who made noise.

"We talked in the timeouts about grinding it out and that's what we did today. Just keep going and going."

The Gryphons will now face the Toronto Varsity Blues Saturday, March 3. Match time is 1 pm.

Despite the fact that Guelph has several rookies, the team does possess some playoff experience with Gormley and Donevan especially. It will be necessary as the Varsity Blues are a dangerous team. They beat the Gryphons in five sets back on February 9, one of Guelph's only two losses in 2018.

"Toronto is the best team in the league about making adjustments in the middle of the match," said Funk. "Our challenge this week is can we do some adjusting of our own to counter what they're doing? It will be a bit of a cat and mouse game."