Stephen Maar (left) and Danny Demyanenko (right) after a practice earlier this week at McMaster University. Photo: Jeff Tam
The McMaster Marauders took aim at the stars this past year, and for a time, it seemed that the program would be forced back to earth.
Head Coach Dave Preston embarked on a recruiting drive nearly a year ago with the stated mission of chasing down the very best.
The only problem: the best rarely stay north of the 49th parallel.
“I told our players that we were going after some blue chip guys this year,” explains Preston. “I warned them what that could mean.”
The “blue chip” class in question was headlined by Danny Demyanenko and Stephen Maar, two leading members of the vaunted Toronto Crush club team that successfully toured the United States before winning yet another national club title in May.
UBC claims their fifth national title in a row.
It was hardly the dominant run of years past, but the UBC Thunderbirds claimed their fifth-consecutive national women’s volleyball title at the expense of the Alberta Pandas on Sunday night.
Battling back from a two set to one deficit in front of a large and energized crowd at McMaster’s Burridge Gym, the Thunderbirds capped their comeback victory with a block on Alberta’s rookie standout Alena Omelchenko.
Final set scores were 25-21, 15-25, 19-25, 25-20, 15-12 in favour of the British Columbian outfit in what was a neck-and-neck encounter between the nation’s top two teams.
The opening frame saw the Pandas open an early lead at 10-6 as UBC began to misfire from the outside, and the Alberta squad would maintain that advantage at the technical timeout after an emotional single block brought the score to 16-13 in their favour.
The Thunderbirds would emerge the stronger from the timeout however, and after Omelchenko botched an attempted attack from the middle, the Pandas’ lead had dwindled to just a single point at 20-19. UBC seized their opportunity and completed the first set comeback with a double block for 25-21.
It's Playoff Time!
Regular season play has finished for CIS men's and women's volleyball. Before the national championships in Hamilton (women's) and Kingston (men's) each conference in the CIS must have their playoffs. Each conference is different. There are a different number of teams in each conference and sometimes each conference has a different number of teams in each gender. We'll breakdown how each conference does their playoffs.
RSEQ - Men's and Women's Playoffs
In the RSEQ three teams make playoffs in both the men's and women's side of the conference. The format of the RSEQ playoffs is a best two of three home and home series. The team that finishes first in the regular season gets a bye to the second round.
Men's Playoff Schedule
- Sherbrooke def. Montreal 3-0 - February 10th, 2012
- Sherbrooke def. Montreal 3-2 - February 11th, 2012
- Laval def. Sherbrooke 3-0 - February 17th, 2012
- Laval def. Sherbrooke 3-0 - February 24th, 2012
Women's Playoff Schedule
- Laval def. McGill 3-2 - February 10th, 2012
- McGill def. Laval 3-1 - February 11th, 2012
- McGill def. Laval 3-2 - February 12, 2012
- Montreal def. McGill 3-1 - February 18th, 2012
- Montreal def. McGill 3-0 - February 24th, 2012
Canada West, AUS, and OUA playoffs after the jump.
Graphic: yorkulions.ca
Some unfortunate news for the York University Lions Women's Volleyball program. The CIS ruled on an OUA sanctioned forfeit of the squad's last match, an OUA quarter final game against RMC. The OUA had ruled the match a forfeit because The Lions had played transfer player Michelle Pierce. Pierce was a transfer player from The Windsor Lancers and as a transfer player, had to sit out a full year. Pierce did sit out the full year, that is not the violation being questioned. The violation committed is that every player that plays in a playoff match has to have played in or at least dressed for at least one regular season game. Because Pierce had to sit out a full year, she missed dressing for a regular season game by - two days.
York led the OUA for the entire season finishing with a record of 16-2 and they did this without the game play of Michelle Pierce. Both the transfer and the playoff roster rules seem fair. Rules like this are common in sports at both the professional and collegiate level. These rules are designed to help maintain balance and fairness when one player leaves one team to play for another. But there is something about this story that seems unfair.
Read the rest of the article after the jump.
Graphic: Google
It's the end of the regular season for CIS Men's and Women's Volleyball. Teams are wrapping up their regular seasons and many teams are having their senior nights to say goodbye to their teammates leaving this year. Matches are listed below and if there are live video links, we've posted those too.
Men's Games February 11, 2012
- UNB vs. Dalhousie - 2:00 p.m. AST
- McMaster vs. Toronto - 3:00 p.m. EST - Live Video
- Ryerson vs. York - 4:00 p.m. EST
- Calgary vs. Regina 6:15 p.m. CST - Live Video
- Alberta vs. Brandon - 7:45 p.m. CST - Live Video
- Saskatchewan vs. Manitoba - 8:00 p.m. CST - Live Video
- UBC vs. Trinity Western - 7:00 p.m. - Live Video
- Thompson Rivers vs. UBC Okanagan - 8:00 p.m. PST - Live Video
Men's Games February 12, 2012
- Ryerson vs. Toronto - 1:00 p.m. EST - Live Video
- McMaster vs. York - Live Video
Women's games after the break.
We're heading into the home stretch of the CIS volleyball season with this week being the second last week of the regular season. Lots of schools are having their senior nights as they say goodbye to graduating players, many of whom will be playing high level volleyball for the last time. Below is the list of the games this weekend and if available, links to live streams.
CIS Women's Volleyball Games
February 4th, 2012
- Western at Queen's - 12:00 p.m. EST
- Acadia at Cape Breton - 2:00 p.m. AST
- Windsor at RMC - 1:00 p.m. EST
- Memorial at Saint Mary's - 7:00 p.m. AST
- Moncton at UNB - 7:00 p.m. AST
- York at Guelph - 6:00 p.m. EST - Live Stats
- Lakehead at Waterloo - 6:00 p.m. EST
- Montreal at Laval - 6:00 p.m. EST - Live Video
- McGill at Sherbrooke - 6:00 p.m. CST
- Winnipeg at Manitoba - 6:00 p.m. CST - Live Video
- UBC Okanagan at Saskatchewan - 6:00 p.m. CST - Live Video
- Trinity Western at Calgary - 6:00 p.m. CST - Live Video
- Brandon at UBC 5:00 p.m. PST - Live Video
- Regina at Alberta 7:30 p.m. MST - Live Video
More matches after the jump.
When I launched Kill on Two just over a year ago my intention was to create one central location where a volleyball fan could find information, scores, videos and news about volleyball in Canada and around the world. Today I came across a three part video documentary series on The Windsor Lancers Men's Volleyball program. This video is exactly like the kind of videos I imagined creating when I started the site. It has great production value, showcases our sport and (most importantly) it is good. It is an enjoyable watch. Maybe I'm biased because I love the sport of volleyball, but chances are that if you are reading this post you do too. If you haven't already, do so now.
Parts 2 and 3 after the jump.
The CIS is in full swing this weekend with a very large 53 matches taking place over today, tomorrow and Sunday. Very few of the matches have live streams, but we have listed below the ones that do and their links if you are looking for something to watch this weekend. If you happen to be at any of these matches throughout the weekend be sure to drop us a line on our Twitter account, or Facebook page. Or, if you happen to be at The University of Toronto (that's where we'll be) come and say hi.
Enjoy
CIS Women's Volleyball Games
Friday January 27th, 2012
- Guelph at Waterloo - 6:00 PM EST Live Video
- Montreal at McGill - 6:00 PM EST
- Sherbrooke at Laval - 6:00 PM EST Live Video
- Ottawa at Queen's - 7:00 PM EST Live stats
- Trinity Western - Manitoba at 6:00 PM CST
- UBC at Winnipeg - 6:00 PM CST
- Calgary at Alberta - 6:00 PM MST
- Regina at UBC Okanagan - 6:00 PM PST
- Saskatchewan at Thompson Rivers - 6:00 PM PST
More women's and men's CIS volleyball matches after the jump.