Reporter: Luke Callebert
The Lords men’s volleyball team finished their spectacular regular season off with a win against the Trent Excalibur on Feb. 12. The Lords finish the regular season with a 16-2 record, which is good for second overall in the east division.
The Lords cruised in the first set, 25-12, looking extremely sharp, but with the game not affecting where Durham would finish in the standings, head coach George Matsusaki rested most of his starters.
“The second group hadn’t had a chance to play a lot this year,” said Matsusaki. “They deserved it, because they’ve worked hard to really prepare us all for our games. We put them out there to see what they could do.”
Taking the starters out wasn’t lost on the second team.
“It was definitely cool,” said second team setter Ben Gledhill. “It was a playoff atmosphere, it was really cool to get to play in a game like that.”
Matsusaki was impressed with how his substitutes attacked the game after coming in.
“Coming in, Trent was one of the hottest teams in the league,” said Matsusaki. “It was a good battle and sets the tone for the playoffs. Our first string sees that, sees how hard the second string plays just to get playing time.”
The Lords would lose the second and third sets by the score of 25-22, but the substitutes found another gear in the fourth set, winning 25-21.
The game came down a deciding fifth set.
What a fifth set it was.
Going back and forth trying to be the first to 15, Durham and Trent alternated serving for game point. Due to the rule of having to win by two points, the final score ended up being 22-20 in Durham’s favour.
Paul Rapos, who had a massive game, with 20 kills and two blocks, led the Lords to the victory. Nick Coleman added 10 kills and five blocks while Jeremy Hoekstra, in limited playing time, had five kills and four blocks.
The Lords, due to the streak-ending loss against Algonquin, now have to play a qualifying game against St. Clair at home. St. Clair finished the season with a 10-8 record in the west division. The OCAAs are hosted in Barrie on Feb. 20-22.
