HAWKS CONTINUE TOUGHEST PRE-SEASON SCHEDULE TO DATE
LONDON, ON: The Humber women's volleyball team continued their pre-season this weekend in London, Ontario where they would go up against the Western Mustangs in exciting volleyball.
Saturday afternoon consisted of split-squad play between both teams. Humber competed well and stayed with both halves of Western among the play. All coaches agreed that there were steps made in the right direction, and that the Hawks would be able to compete.
After a brief dinner break, an official match began at 6.
The first set was very back and forth for the Hawks and the Mustangs. Although the mustangs were a bit more 'polished' than the Hawks, Humber's effort continued to push them through the match, no one more than a few points ahead at the time.
Third-year left side Brynne Coleman lead the match in kills. She had a total of nine kills throughout the duration of the four games.
After the 20 point mark in the first set, Humber fought into extra points, but managed to secure the win 26-24.
Serving was an important aspect of the Hawk's game as they put the Mustangs out of position and allowed them to rely on their defense to dig the ball. Kyla Wilkins, third-year libero was the match leader in digs.
The next three sets were all close, but after a very long past few days the Hawks were tired, and you could tell. Heavy legs would have the Mustangs sweep the next three sets from Humber and win 4-1.
The scores of those sets were as follows:
18-25 - Western
15-25 – Western
15-25 – Western
Another match was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 1.
SUNDAY
When the Hawks arrived at the gym, the squad looked a bit more refined in their warm up. Fresh legs played a big part in the energy of their warm-up.
During the first match, Humber struggled to transition a serve receive ball into an offensive attack. This was a continuous theme over the 4-0 sweep for Western.
"We couldn't transition, we transitioned off serve receive less than 10% of the time, which means that we had to give them the ball back and play defense in order to try and score again." Said head coach Chris Wilkins.
Humber dropped the first set 25-22 to Western.
As the match went on, Humber found themselves scrambling and fighting for each point, but the unforced errors allowed Western to capitalize on point runs. Humber's success on offense was with first year right-side Breanna Goulding, with a match total of four kills.
Western took the next two sets 25-19 and 25-22.
During the final set the squad found themselves down in a rut of 25-14.
Brynne Coleman served six consecutive balls that allowed Humber to gain momentum and come back, but served just deep finishing the match 25-19 for Western.
