Men’s volleyball team advances to CIS championship tourney
Pure elation. The men's volleyball team bested the Western Mustangs 3-1 on Saturday to clinch their fourth OUA title in six years. The team heads to Quebec City this weekend to compete for the CIS national championship.
Coming into Saturday’s OUA men’s volleyball final-four, all eyes were on the McMaster Marauders as they came into the showdown with a gaudy record, a high ranking and home court advantage.
The spotlight clearly didn’t get to them.
The Marauders swept the York Lions 3-0 (25-17, 25-13, 25-20) in their opener, and defeated a tough group of Western Mustangs 3-1 (25-27, 26-24, 32-30, 25-20) to capture the program’s fifth OUA title, including four of the last six titles under coach Dave Preston.
Tournament MVP Jori Mantha, a third-year student from Vanier, Ont., had a fantastic showing over the two-day event, and was almost unstoppable in his attack. A large and boisterous crowd raised the decibel level in the gym considerably, which made for a fantastic atmosphere as a sea of fans cheered every McMaster point.
The Marauders now advance to the CIS championships, being held at Université Laval this coming weekend (March 1-3). McMaster will enter the national tournament as the third seed, and will play the University of New Brunswick on Friday, March 1 at 12:30 p.m.
In other sports news, the women’s basketball team travelled to Brock for an OUA West semi-final, and upset the Brock Badgers 73-67 behind 30 points from freshman phenom Danielle Boiago and another double-double of 17 points and 14 rebounds from fourth-year student Hailey Milligan.
The Marauders now travel to Windsor to face the first-place Lancers for the OUA West final on Mar. 2 at 7 pm.
The men’s basketball team won its first playoff game at home versus Waterloo, and travelled to Thunder Bay for an OUA West semi-final meeting with Lakehead. The Marauders fought hard in a tough environment but dropped a narrow 81-75 decision to bring their season to an end.
At the CIS swimming championships in Calgary, McMaster brought home three medals as the women’s 4 X 100-metre free relay team of Meg Sloan, Emily Fung, Emma Mittermaier, and Sarah Taylor captured the bronze medal. Their time of 3.45:45 set a new McMaster team record, bettering the old standard by 1.5 seconds.
The relay performance was followed up by a terrific swim from Konrad Bald in the 100-metre breaststroke. Bald captured the silver medal, just getting edged out by Calgary’s Jason Block, who won the race in CIS record time. Bald’s silver-medal swim of 1.00:14 smashed the old McMaster team record by 1.4 seconds.
Mac’s last medal came from Cameron Bailey, who won silver in the 200-metre individual medley event. Bailey was touched out for the gold medal by just 0.3 seconds.
In the overall team standings, McMaster finished in 7th place on the men’s side, while the women’s team was 11th overall.
McMaster also brought home some medals from the OUA indoor track & field Championships in Windsor. Scott Hutchinson won two silver medals, first in the men’s 300-metre race and then as part of the Mac 4 X 200-metre relay along with Connor Mabbott, Rudy Baronette, and Garrick Mok.
In the women’s 3,000-metre race, Victoria Coates won the bronze medal.
