THUNDER BAY, Ont – “Toronto is the exact team we watched for the week. They ran the plays we thought they would run. We had a lot of the right ideas too, we prepared for it all week,” stated Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s Volleyball Coach Chris Green. “Full marks to them for executing what we knew they would do, and average marks to us for our abilities to execute our game plan”.
“I know we worked hard. No one makes errors in serving the way we did and expects to win. We made way too many serving errors and still were in the sets to win. That shows our game was working, but our focus was not on situations. We need wins not talking about how close we were or are.” Green continued, “We have played our 2 best games in a row and now we are 1-1 in the middle portion of the regular season. Full marks to Jasmine Fox who played an outstanding game and of course Jorie Daymond who is showing her self to be a premier left side in this league. We need to focus on Ryerson now, so Toronto is out of sight out of mind. Onto a top level Ryerson team. We will need to completely focus on them now. Should be a very good game.”
The women’s volleyball team lost on Saturday evening, 3-1 to the University of Toronto Varsity Blues (23-25, 21-25, 25-18, 23-25).
The first set could have easily been won for Lakehead, who struggled with their serves early on, but continued to serve tough all game, leading to dividends later on in the match. There were many positives to take from the day’s work, among them improved bench play, better execution in clutch situations, and as always, great digging and defense from the Thunderwolves.
Sophomore left side Jen Casey came off the bench to make some big plays, most of them in the form of big attacks at the net, which gave some relief to right side hitter Vanesa Chorkawy, who regularly had two blockers on her attacks. Stephanie Chartrand also played a crucial role in the 3rd set, coming in and serving tough to get LU’s only set of the day. She would finish with 1 kill and 2 block assists. Casey finished with 7 kills and 5 digs.
Jasmine Fox had a big game in the middle, totalling 4 points (2 kills, 2 blocks).
Top scorer for Lakehead was Jorie Daymond with 25 points (24 kills, 1 block, 14 digs), followed by Chorkawy with 17.5 points (17 kills, 1 block assist) and a huge 25 dig effort. Libero Breanne Hilhorst came up with 18 digs, while setter Sara Hudson had 5 kills, 44 assists and 9 digs on the day.
For the Blues, Charlotte Sider had 17 kills and 10 digs with 2 block assists. Jennifer Neilson was next with 10 kills. Toronto setter Julia Bellehumeur finished with 28 assists.
The women will play Ryerson Sunday at 2PM in the Thunderdome.