Marauders are in seasoned form as swimming, wrestling and volleyball teams all place in U Sports top ten

On Jan. 31, the McMaster University Marauders announced that the men and women’s volleyball, wrestling and swimming teams all placed in the top ten of U Sports sports rankings. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by McMaster Marauders (@mcmastersports)

The men and women’s volleyball placed third and eighth respectively in the national circuit following dominant performances in January. Before splitting a weekend series with the Queen’s University Gaels on Jan. 26 and 27, the men’s team was riding a three game win streak against Western University, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto

Their record of 12-4 sits only one game behind Brock University and the University of Guelph, who are tied for first in the province with 13 wins and three losses. 

On the women’s team, the Marauders went almost undefeated in the month before a recent sweep by the Gaels, who took both games against McMaster 1-3 on Jan. 26 and 27. The losses moved their Ontario University Athletics record to 13-3, as they stand third overall in the province behind the Badgers, who have only recorded one loss this year, and the Gaels.

The losses moved their Ontario University Athletics record to 13-3, as they stand third overall in the province behind the Badgers, who have only recorded one loss this year, and the Gaels.

The wrestling program also made waves in U Sports rankings, with the men and women climbing to the third and eighth best spots in the country. 

Leading the charge for Marauders, standouts Serena Di Benedetto and Gregor McNeil picked up gold medals in their matches at the Guelph Open on Jan. 21. 

Both athletes played key roles as rookies on last year’s rosters, with Di Benedetto winning the OUA Most Outstanding Wrestler and Rookie of the Year award and McNeil picking up the U Sports Wrestler of the Week award on Nov. 16, 2022. They will look to make a big impact at the OUA championships competition on Feb. 10 in Sault Ste. Marie. 

Both athletes played key roles as rookies on last year’s rosters, with Di Benedetto winning the OUA Most Outstanding Wrestler and Rookie of the Year award and McNeil picking up the U Sports Wrestler of the Week award on Nov. 16, 2022.

Finally, the women and men’s swimming placed ninth and tenth to round out the rest of the Marauders’ rankings. 

The swimming teams finished their final OUA invitational at the University of Toronto on Jan. 21. Rookies Hayden Yeung and Kalen Murray brought home four medals for the men, with Yeung winning the races for the 100 and 50 metre breaststroke races and Murray capturing the silver 200m and bronze 100m backstroke medals. 

Mikaela Blake collected the 100 metre fly gold medal while Megan Deering, who picked up the McMaster Athlete of the Week award on Nov. 27, 2023 placed first in the 50m breaststroke race. Currently, Blake, Deering and Yeung are set to qualify for the national U Sports Swimming Championships taking place on Mar. 7 to 9 in Montreal.

C/O McMaster Sports

Marauders claim victory at recent wrestling invitationals and look to repeat the wins 

As of Nov. 22, both McMaster’s men's and women's wrestling teams found themselves placing seventh in the country according to U Sports rankings. While this was many months ago, the Marauders have been doing well in both invitationals and opens, with the men’s team placing first at the Brock Open on Feb. 26 and the women’s team placing second at the Western Open on March 20. 

Both teams hope to repeat their wins and bring home the championship title in the Ontario University Athletics championships on April 2, hosted by Brock University. If the teams are successful, this will end Brock’s five-year championship win streak. The last time a team other than the Brock University Badgers was victorious in winning the championship was in 2015, when they fell to the Marauders.  

Peter Shirley, a fourth-year wrestler now preparing for the OUAs, has impressed many so far this season. He was able to earn first place in his weight class at the Western Invitational and third at the Brock Open.  

“Personally, everything that's kind of happened up to this point doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter that I placed at Brock, it doesn't matter that I placed in any other tournament. OUA is a distinct beast and we just have to show up, be ready for a fight and perform,” said Shirley.  

“Personally, everything that's kind of happened up to this point doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter that I placed at Brock, it doesn't matter that I placed in any other tournament. OUA is a distinct beast and we just have to show up, be ready for a fight and perform."

Peter Shirley, Wrestling Team Member

McMaster’s wrestling program fosters this kind of success for the following reasons: innovative coaching, a healthy support system and a positive atmosphere. Another prime example of this strong team culture is Vanessa Fonrose, a second-year wrestler who earned silver at the Brock Open.  

“The first thing that came to mind is having a good training partner that understands you. And then the second one was having good coach in your corner,” explained Fonrose.  

“The first thing that came to mind is having a good training partner that understands you. And then the second one was having good coach in your corner."

Vanessa Fonrose

McMaster’s wrestling head coach, an alumnus McMaster wrestler, is Ahmed Shamiya. While on the men’s team Shamiya was a five-time OUA and four-time national medalist. In addition, Shamiya was men’s coach of the year at the 2020 OUA Championships.  

“I don't think any other school wrestles like us because he's bringing kind of the new age wrestling into not only just our team, but into Canada and helping spread that. He really tries to build the sport and to touch on the team culture — it's amazing,” said Shirley.  

Something unique about Shamiya’s coaching style is that both the men’s and women’s teams train and wrestle together. This creates great cohesion between the two groups to the point that they’re practically one team themselves.  

“I think [what’s] also pretty cool about our team is that we don't have [a] distinct men's team [or a] distinct women's team. We’re in the trenches right together. I think that's one thing that separates us from any other team on this campus,” explained Shirley.  

With the team dynamic and incredible amount of work the team puts in with six practices a week for the past six months, the 2022 OUAs are looking good for the Marauders. The team extends their thanks to their support system including coaching staff, trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, student field therapists and more, without whom the team would not be whole.  

“Shoutout to the team,” said Fonrose.  

C/O Yoohyun Park

It’s been quite the season so far, but which McMaster sports team impressed the most?

What a year it has been in the Marauders return to sport! After a long period of inactivity, in September the Marauders got back on track with their varsity schedules when most of the teams finally resumed their competitive runs. This season, McMaster students were lucky to see many teams perform well on the big stages, such as the Ontario University Athletics championships and even out of province competition to test their abilities.  

As the end of the school year approaches, it seemed appropriate to look back and determine which teams impressed our community the most. The following rankings are based on how far teams made it through the OUAs or any other championship and the competition that they had to face before achieving their spot. Without further ado, let’s look through the Sil’s five most impressive varsity performances of the season, counting down from five. 

5.  Men's and women’s wrestling 

It’s safe to say that this season has been very successful for both the men's and the women's wrestling teams. Last November the teams competed at a tournament hosted in Hamilton, where they collected a total of six medals — three silvers and three golds.  

Their success did not stop there. Just over a month ago, both of the teams competed at the Brock open, where they took on some of the best teams in Ontario. The event proved to be a very successful one for our wrestlers. The men’s team came out as champions and the women’s team placed third. Additionally, Francesco Fortino, a player on the men’s wrestling team won the Marauder of the Week accolade

The grind doesn't stop there for the wrestling teams. Their next challenge will be on April 2, when they will take part in the OUA championships in St. Catherines.  

4.  Women's basketball 

This season the women’s basketball team really made a name for itself in the OUAs. Despite having won the national title just two years prior, the team was widely viewed as being in a transition year due to so many early year players. Despite knowing that the competition was going to be rough and that it was going to take a lot of work for such a young team to make it to the OUA playoffs, they made it happen. 

Although there were ups and downs along the way, the team showed a lot of character in all of their games, managing to finish with a record of 10-7. When they started the OUA playoffs, they swept the Waterloo Warriors 63-45, which guaranteed them a quarterfinal spot. Unfortunately, their luck ran out in the quarters, where the Brock Badgers just narrowly came on top with 49-45.  

Overall, it was a season full of character for the Marauders, which is something which they wish to build on for next season after their exciting first year back. 

Overall, it was a season full of character for the Marauders, which is something which they wish to build on for next season after their exciting first year back. 

3.  Men’s soccer 

The men’s soccer team started playing their competitions in September and finished off near the middle of the first semester. Although it has been a while since we got to see the players in maroon, we can’t forget their astonishing run throughout. During their season, they played eleven games, of which six were wins and only two were losses. 

Much of the effort it took to make it that far came from their star striker, Dusan Kovacevic. The OUA athlete of the week accounted for just over 30% of the team’s goals. Furthermore, Kovacevic scored four times in a game against the Algoma Thunderbirds, which ended 7-0 for the Marauders.  

Although the team did make it to the quarterfinals of the OUA championships, they unfortunately fell 3-1 to the Carleton Ravens, which ended their eventful season.  

2. Men’s basketball 

The men’s basketball team has been very impressive this season. They consistently achieved good results and were even on a five-win streak in the OUA season.  

The men’s basketball team has been very impressive this season. They consistently achieved good results and were even on a five-win streak in the OUA season.  

Throughout the season, they won 12 out of the possible 18 games, which took them to the OUA championship knock-out stages. It wasn’t going to be easy, but the Marauders started strongly with their 12-point win against the Lakehead Timberwolves, thus guaranteeing them a spot in the semis. Unfortunately, that is where their journey ended as they were knocked out by the Badgers, 75-88. Regardless, the fantastic performance of the men’s basketball team this season deserves to be recognized near the top of this list.  

1. Men’s volleyball team 

Where do we start? The men’s volleyball team has been inspiring to watch, to say the least. They have fought their way through the OUA championships with ease, winning the title and making sure that they were the team to be feared, even far away from home.  

They have fought their way through the OUA championships with ease, winning the title and making sure that they were the team to be feared, even far away from home.  

The men’s volleyball team played 18 games between the regular season, the OUA playoffs and the national playoffs. Of these games, they won 17. In their first 12 games of the season in the group stages of the OUA, they did not lose a single game. Furthermore, the Marauders went on to glide through the OUA knockout stages against teams like the Windsor Lancers, the Brock Badgers and the Toronto Varsity Blues. The latter was the opponent the Marauders played against in the finals, where they clinched their first OUA title in three seasons.  

Things didn't end there for the team, as they went on to play in the U Sports championships in Winnipeg. Although the team did not start well, losing to the University of Calgary, they bounced back and achieved fifth in all of Canada, winning against Queens Gaels and the Manitoba Bisons in the consolation play-offs.  

For the past 25 years, Maclean’s magazine has released a comprehensive ranking of Canadian Universities.

The ranking takes into account numerous categories including, but not limited to: program details, finances, scholarship opportunities, reputational rankings, and historically, survey results conducted by the universities themselves.

This year, for the first time in the magazine’s history, instead of relying on the independent surveys distributed by each academic institution, they conducted their own Student Satisfaction Survey to receive unique data on the lived student experience.

The survey asked questions related to familiarity and closeness with professors, feeling prepared to enter the workforce, critical thinking education, mental health services on campus and more.

If you’ve been keeping up with these rankings, you will know that this year McMaster received an overall fifth place ranking among Canadian institutions, and according to the Student Satisfaction Survey, it is the top ranked university for the provision of mental health services. McMaster Daily News was quick to tote the university’s place at the top of the Mental Health pyramid, but many students can attest to the fact that the school, like many others, still has a long way to go before being considered a front-runner in the Canadian mental health awareness journey.

In one breath, there are elements of McMaster’s mental health provisions that are fantastic and an undeniable privilege compared to the facilities available to our academic neighbours. We have on-campus services that provide counselling and therapy, the McMaster Student Absence Form that allows students to take time off in moments of ailment, and a few student-run services that work to give students one-on-one time. But just how many students are actually able to access these programs?

As someone who has used these services, I know that there is often a waitlist for services, and barriers with professors and programs can arise when filing documentation or completing an MSAF [FEB. 12, 2015 – “Let’s talk about the MSAF”].

The Satisfaction Survey received responses from over 10,000 students across the country, with 310 of those being from McMaster. A mere 1.02 percent of McMaster’s 30,000+ student population was surveyed to reach this ranking, and the magazine acknowledges that it was not the most in-depth analysis for this particular category.

This is an extremely small population of people to begin with, but on top of this, of this one percent, how many of these students have actually experienced mental health concerns to the point that they’ve required McMaster’s services?

The only question on the survey related to mental health was “How would you rate the following at your school,” with “Mental Health Services” being one of the rated categories. The survey was not detailed in this category, and as excited as the university is, and many of its students are, to receive this ranking and celebrate McMaster’s efforts to improve mental health treatment on campus, we cannot convince ourselves that it is an appropriate representation of the services we provide for students.

Thousands of incoming university students see these rankings and make their choices based on the information provided. While this rank is a boost for the University, we still have an obligation to continue working to make sure our mental health services are the best they can be, and keep incoming students informed about the realistic limitations of our services, as well as our efforts to improve them.

Just because our university has received this one unsubstantiated ranking, it does not mean we have peaked at our ability to adequately serve the needs of all our students.

By: John Bauer

When the CIS released their preliminary top 10 women's volleyball rankings for the year, noticeably absent amongst the contenders was last year's OUA champion McMaster Marauders. The team responded to being left off the rankings, winning both of their weekend matches in straight sets.

The Marauders began their title defence Friday with their home opener against the Western Mustangs. The game was never really in doubt, as the Marauders won in straight sets 25-17, 25-20, 25-16. Returning outside hitters Joanna Jedrzejewska and Lauren Mastroluisi carried the bulk of the offensive load for McMaster, more often than not set up by Caitlin Genovy. Taylor Brisebois and Maicee Sorensen pitched in with 10 and 9.5 points from the middle court, respectively. To top off the evening, rookie Katie Zutautas got into her first OUA game and made her mark with a service ace.

It was more of the same Saturday when the Windsor Lancers visited Burridge gymnasium.  Jedrzejewska exploded for 20 points, and the trio of Jedrzejewska,  Brisebois, and Mastroluisi ravaged the Lancers defence for four service aces each. The Maroon and Grey cruised to a 25-23, 25-9, 25-12 victory, holding Windsor to a 0 percent conversion efficiency in the final two sets of the game.

The Marauders face their first real test on Oct. 25 in Ottawa versus the no. 4-ranked Gee-Gees, no doubt looking to rebound from a 0-2 start. Volleyball fans can catch the action via live stream on OUA.tv starting at 2:00 p.m.

"If you can walk and talk faster, you can go to McMaster."

On one hand, there's a level of juvenile appeal in comparing and bragging about the superiority of one's own school over another. But McMaster students can still take pride in their school after the most recent updates to world university rankings reaffirms McMaster's strong position in the global community.

With the release of the annual reports for the three most influential world university rankings, McMaster continues to demonstrate a consistency in both its ranking and its relation to Canadian contemporaries in post-secondary education.

Gord Arbeau, Director of Public and Community Relations, says that it indicates the prestigious standard McMaster is held to.

"If you look at [recent] rankings, if you look at them all together, the university has done quite well," Arbeau said. "It's a reflection of the university's ability to attract and retain, really, some of the best faculty members in the country, and to attract the very highest quality students."

In an early October update to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Canadian universities actually suffered in position, with the exception of the University of Toronto, which remained at its position of 20. While McMaster dipped from 92nd to 94th overall, the school remains as one of only four Canadian universities in the top 100 in the world, behind the University of Toronto, as well as the University of British Columbia and McGill University.

Meanwhile, earlier in September, the QS World University Rankings saw McMaster make a large leap to 113th, from 140th last year. Along with similar trends among other Canadian universities, QS noted the best indicator for improvement was academic reputation. McMaster also rose in standing in the latest update to the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities, moving from 92nd to 90th late this summer.

"I think with rankings, the important thing to remember is that they really are a snapshot in time, that each of the rankings use different methodologies and measure different things," Arbeau said.

"When you look at [recent rankings] individually, you might see the university might move up a spot or down a spot, but when you look at them collectively [...] you'll see that McMaster remains one of four Canadian universities firmly entrenched in the top 100 in the world. There are some 15,000, 16,000 universities around the world, and McMaster remains in the top 100."

Each of the three major ranking systems uses its own unique criteria when judging the placement of universities. For example, the THE looks at 13 performance indicators grouped into five areas, with an emphasis on teaching and research. The QS rankings uses the student to faculty ratio as a simple measure of teaching quality, with an added attempt to evaluate more subjective criteria through their focus on a survey of reputation.

In contrast to the THE and QS rankings, the ARWU system attempts to focus on more objective criteria, with a heavy emphasis on research. Criteria such as faculty that have won Nobel Prizes or other major awards, and the number of citations in prestigious journals are all weighed heavily.

Among the three rankings, McMaster specifically performs well in the evaluation of its science programs; this includes a global rank of 25 in THE's assessment of Clinical, Pre-clinical & Health programs.

In comments captured by a recent news release, Patrick Deane responded to the recent updates on world university rankings.

“When this ranking is considered with the others released over the past few weeks, it is clear McMaster is providing high quality teaching and learning, conducting groundbreaking research and attracting and retaining the best faculty and staff."

Remember the feeling of getting your report card? McMaster was faced with that feeling this October, as the Globe and Mail published its annual Canadian University Report.

The assessment, released on Oct. 25, tried to get away from the largely data-based rankings of other organizations, instead assigning letter grades to different aspects of the university’s performance based on student surveys.

And McMaster’s administration was certainly pleased with the report card results.

“It’s extremely gratifying to be ranked by students as providing the highest quality teaching and learning experience in Canada,” President Patrick Deane told the Daily News, referring to McMaster’s first-place finish in its division for quality of teaching and learning.

Most notably, Mac ranked first in campus atmosphere, research opportunities and quality of teaching and learning, as well as second in student satisfaction, where it placed behind Western.

It also made an impression at the lower end of the large school division, placing second to last in city satisfaction and information technology. And naturally, McMaster’s infamous SOLAR system earned the university last place in course registration.

“If you take all the rankings, they add up to an interesting perspective that we’re strong, but there are some areas which need our attention,” said Deane.

The premise of the Globe’s rankings is a survey of current undergraduate students. For the 2013 rankings, 33,000 undergrads responded to a survey, and their responses, given on a scale of 1 to 9, were converted into corresponding letter grades. But the entire premise of this style of ranking is problematic, said Lonnie Magee, an economics professor at Mac.

“How would a university student be able to know about another school?” he asked. “It’s so driven by how you compare it with what you’re expecting.” He explained that since students attend only one university, such a comparison not particularly useful.

The Globe and Mail addressed this criticism in its 2012 Canadian University Report, released last October. Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, an education consulting firm that advises the Globe on the annual report, argued that student surveys are a reliable method of devising rankings.

“Another criticism [of the report] was that student[s] … had no idea what was available at any school other than their own. That’s true to some extent – but if year after year a particular institution gets results which are particularly good or particularly bad compared to other institutions of its type, then the results start to gain in validity,” Usher argued.

Magee notes that such results come from the “temptation to make the results more objective, to accumulate statistics and present them to show that your rankings are based on these ‘hard facts’ that have been collected.” He cautioned that qualitative factors like student satisfaction are tough to compare.

The Canadian University Report is one of two major Canadian university ranking publications. The other, administered by Maclean’s, is the more well-established of the two. It will release its 22nd annual rankings issue this year, while the Globe has just published its 11th.

Rather than following the Globe and Mail’s approach of a heavily student-based survey, Maclean’s compiles a number of factors to generate its rankings. Schools are divided into three categories: medical-doctoral, comprehensive and primarily undergraduate, in order to improve the comparison.

But the factors it uses for this comparison, made up largely of data from Statistics Canada and federal funding agencies, are sometimes criticized for not being entirely relevant to students or administration.

Mike Veall, an economics professor at McMaster, has published work on the effectiveness of the Maclean’s rankings. He described their methods as being a “little bit suspect in terms of gaining indicators.”

“It’s not quite clear that the indicators match quite well with what students or administrators should care about,” he said.

While there are many factors, the rankings do consider data like the number of library holdings and amount of money available for current expenses per weighted full-time-equivalent student.

McMaster has also been rated by broader, global organizations. But these, too, have their limitations.

The Times Higher Education (THE), for example, produces a rankings issue considered to be one of the best in the world.

This year, McMaster placed 88th overall in their report. But the THE also ranks by faculty, and in the “clinical, pre-clinical, and health” category, McMaster earned 14th place in the world, making it the top school in the category in Canada.

Meanwhile, QS, a British firm, ranked McMaster 152nd. A Shanghai-based organization Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) placed McMaster this year at 92nd.

International rankings methods provide a different set of criteria. While Maclean’s and the Globe consider student satisfaction, such firms as QS and THE factor in a school’s industry influence and international impact – an area where McMaster can’t compete as well, especially when factors like number of Nobel Prize winners are considered.

But in the end, a bad report card doesn’t have a huge effect on a school, Veall said. In his 2005 study, co-authored by Qi Kong, a Mac undergrad at the time, he concluded that a change in ranking has little effect on a school’s enrolment share or the entrance average of its students. A shift of one place in the rankings can, at best, change the mean entrance average by 0.3 percent, although Veall emphasized that this conclusion was “not particularly robust.”

But even though the rankings may not matter much in the end, it doesn’t mean McMaster can’t be happy with a good report card.

Subscribe to our Mailing List

© 2025 The Silhouette. All Rights Reserved. McMaster University's Student Newspaper.
magnifiercrossmenu