Men's volleyball keeps winning streak alive

Before the Marauders get on the court, and ready to go for a match, they do a lot of off-court training- which means speed, agility, and quickness work, which all takes place in several of McMaster’s facilities.

“We are trying to build capacity, or what I call “building a bigger tank” with sports specific movement and proper work-to-rest ratio. Without going into tremendous detail, we do a lot of circuit work, a lot of SAQ [speed, agility, quickness] work and we are working on some reaction stuff,” said head coach Dave Preston.

The Marauders do not get much of a break in that regard, as they train regularly five times a week, with two days a week on the court, and two days a week on the indoor track.

“Two days a week on the track, two days a week on court, five days a week practice and usually two matches. We are building [training] in pretty good; we are efficient with our time. We are not coasting in that regard,” added Preston.

All of this hard work and training has paid off so far, as the Marauders have been able to maintain a steady three game winning streak, with their most recent win coming against the Toronto Varsity Blues – which was one that they took quite easily in three sets.

This is something that Coach Preston says he is happy with, but not fully satisfied with. These are two terms that Preston finds to be completely different from one another.

“I think we are happy with where we are, are we satisfied with where we are? No. There is a difference there. I don’t know if we truly ever will be because there is always going to be something more. Say you win a championship, well then we will want two. There is always going to be bigger, faster and stronger,” said Preston.

Preston also feels as though the team needs to not get caught in a trap of playing just good enough to beat the other team. He wants the team to play to their best potential all of the time.

“The biggest thing that I am on [the team] about is trying not to let them do what they can get away with. Can we get away with playing at this level to beat this team? That is a trap we do not want to get into. We want to play at our absolute best as often as possible, as long as possible.”

This is why the Marauders are currently working on their endurance, so they can win not just the first and second set, but maintain this power to win the third, fourth and fifth sets as well, not allowing the team they are facing to make a comeback.

Preston thinks that online viagra in order for the Marauders to pull out a clean, and close-to-perfect win, they need to concentrate on communication.

“What we are working on right now is making better decisions at the time that they need to be made, communicating those decisions to each other and then executing the game plan that is designed around that decision,” said Preston.

There is not a lack of communication with the team; but he feels as though it can be developed further to make the Marauders close to perfect.

“It is not a lack, it is a development. We cannot do stage four, until we have done stages one, two and three. We have one, two and three in place now. We can start to move on to stage four and then we can do it faster, which is stage five” added Preston.

In the game against the Toronto Varsity Blues, the Marauders were able to demonstrate their dominance, with Jayson McCarthy standing out as the player of the game, with 12 points for the Marauders, converting seven of 15 hitting attempts and adding two service aces, two solo blocks and two block assists.

This is something that Preston knows is a combination of natural talent, hard work and determination.

“The stuff that he has been working hard at is his blocking and his serving. What people saw on Saturday afternoon was a result of him putting in probably 18 months of hard work…He has some God-given natural talent and we are very blessed and thankful that he is a Marauder. But, he works his tail off at certain things too” said Preston.

Preston, McCarthy and the Marauders will try and bring their talent to the game against the Ryerson Rams, where they will be up against powerful hitter Robert Wojcik, who Preston believes will be a force to be reckoned with.

“Robert Wojcik is a load. He was on Team Ontario with a number of our guys this summer, and he’s similar to Jayson McCarthy. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s dynamic, and he carries that Ryerson team. They’ve got a lot of other pieces around him, but we’re talking about one of the eighth ranked teams in the country. These guys are great.”

Preston and his No. 2 ranked team are up for whatever challenge Robert Wojcik and the Rams may bring, however, and are excited to play against a team that Preston knows will bring their best game to the Burridge Gym this Friday night at 8:00 p.m.

“We don’t want to win because everyone else is a little bit worse than us. We expect them to be on top of their game on Friday, no doubt about it. And we will be too.”