GUELPH, Ont. – The Guelph Gryphons women's volleyball team is finding out just how fine the line is between success and disappointment in the ultra-competitive OUA. The Gryphons had no shortage of fight on their home court but after storming back from trailing two sets to none, they eventually fell to the Queen's Gaels 3-2 (20-25, 21-25, 25-18, 25-22 and 12-15) Friday night at the GGAC.
 
Guelph cleaned up its play and showed the necessary desperation to get back in the match but Queen's was near-perfect in the fifth set, registering 12 kills without an error. The visitors pulled away late and ended the match when Julia Wiercigroch's kill attempt found a Gryphons blocker but deflected out of bounds.
 
Michaela Hellinga led Guelph with a game-high 17 kills, while adding 13 digs. Setter Alex Curran, who entered the night sitting second in the OUA in assists per set (9.00), added another 44 against the Gaels and libero Tara Tanasijevic, the conference digs leader by a wide margin (5.57 per set, almost 2 digs more than the closest player, and 206 in total), paced the team with 19.
 
Down 2-0, Guelph responded well and would get back in the match with much more dominant play. A Lisa Wedel block was the catalyst for a Gryphon run midway through the set and they closed by winning 15 of the last 21 points to get on the board. The hosts kept the momentum going in the fourth and Hellinga, who stood out offensively in the set, gave the team a boost with a thunderous kill down the middle for an 18-14 lead. Jessica Chung came up with an important finish to make it 24-22 and the Gryphons tied it up at 2-2 when Queen's made an error on set point.
 
The Gaels took the first set and as the second wore on, Guelph stayed within striking distance but wasn't able to pull ahead. That proved costly as the visitors capitalized on some mistakes and rattled off four straight points when the game was 16-16. They closed the set out 25-21 on a big left-handed, cross-court kill from outside hitter Isabelle Korchinski to take a commanding 2-0 lead.
 
The Gryphons got it together after going down two sets and made just six errors in the final three sets.


Gryphon Take
"I'm glad we didn't give up. It would've been easy to roll over in three sets but the girls kept fighting. Jessica and Sophia (Herrera) gave us some energy and it was great to get it to a fifth set. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done. In the first two sets, we were down at the technical timeouts and had a couple bad sections where we made unforced errors and what I would call bad errors. In the third and fourth sets, we started blocking better and made better decisions in attack. If we eliminate those bad sections in the first two sets, we might have won tonight." – head coach Paul Funk
 
The Record
Guelph is 5-6

 
Next up
RMC, Saturday, Jan. 19, 6 pm @ Guelph Gryphons Athletics Centre