The women’s volleyball team ended their season with a fourth-place finish in the OUA playoffs last weekend. The Gaels qualified for the Final Four by beating the York Lions 3-1 on Feb. 24, but lost in the semifinals to the top-ranked McMaster Marauders 3-1 in Hamilton last Friday.
“It was a little anticlimactic,” head coach Joely Christian-Macfarlane said. “While we met our goal of getting to the Final Four, we didn’t finish with the same performance level we had maintained for the season.”
The University of Toronto Varsity Blues won the OUA title after beating the Marauders in straight sets.
The last time the Gaels competed in the OUA Final Four tournament was in 2004. Christian-Macfarlane said home-crowd advantage for the Marauders was a factor in the Gaels’ semifinal loss.
“Mac came out with a great group of fans,” she said. “The for the opposition definitely increased the nerves of the girls.”
After the loss on Friday, the Gaels looked to the bronze medal game against the Western Mustangs. The Gaels, who beat the Mustangs in straight sets on Feb. 5, lost 3-1 to the Mustangs on Saturday.
Christian-Macfarlane said Western hadn’t forgotten their last meeting with the Gaels.
“When Western came [to Queen’s] we beat them,” she said. “They weren’t playing for bronze. They were playing for their pride.”
In both games the Gaels fell behind by two sets early.
Christian-Macfarlane said the Gaels couldn’t pull off a comeback because the opposing sides were too experienced.
“When we come back against other teams, they don’t have the experience, so in many ways we’re able to chip away at their youth,” she said. “When it’s two teams that have been in the Final Four for five straight years, they know how to stay fighting regardless of whether they’re ahead or not.”
Christian-Macfarlane said that in order for the Gaels to be successful next year they need to this year.
“We have quite a few girls planning to return, so we’ll have an older team for once,” she said. “It’s just confidence. The girls need to take the confidence of what they’ve accomplished this year into next year. More than anything, the ability to do that is going to have more of an impact than anyone coming in or leaving.”
Outside hitter Elyssa Heller, who had six kills and 12 digs in the loss to Western, said this year’s playoffs have convinced her to return for her fourth year of eligibility after struggling with a long-term knee injury.
“I wasn’t going to come back because of health reasons next year but after the playoffs, we’ve tasted what it’s like to be close,” she said. “We’ve grown a lot as a team. We have progressed our program from a losing program to a winning program.”
Heller said a main goal for next year is to clinch the home-court advantage that proved to be critical in their loss to McMaster.
“The chirpers kind of get in your head and then you make a bad ,” she said. “We have made strides in of advancing our program but it’s not enough to just make it to the Final Four, next year we were going to take it. Now we know that the crowd gets to us, we’re going to make changes to be able to host.”
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