Young guns get Gryphons

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The volleyball team’s first- and second-year players are now jokingly calling themselves the “all-blacks.” This joke started on their trip to Poland when Nike sent McMaster Volleyball three sets of uniforms this season and one of those kits is all black- black jerseys and black shorts.

The nickname sounds familiar, but Head Coach Dave Preston wants to clear something up.

“We didn’t steal it from the New Zealand rugby team. We needed the black jerseys in Poland because we had three matches in three days. That’s when those younger guys termed themselves the all-blacks,” said Preston. “That’s where it came from.”

Some of those “all-blacks” played most of the Guelph match and handled Guelph’s starters handily. Stephen Maar even thought the young guns played Guelph better than the upperclassmen did a week ago. They ran the Marauders offense and there was no disparity between them and the usual starters. McMaster matched Guelph’s starters with first-years Matt Passalent, Craig Ireland along with second-years Jeff Driediger, Peter Khodkevych, Connor Santoni, and Calvin Lee. The only upperclassman that played the entire match was third-year libero Pawel Jedrzejewski.

“We didn’t have to modify our system. We didn’t have to do anything different because we had different people out there. Our rhythm was pretty good,” said Preston. “We played with character. I thought we played gritty and disciplined. It just goes to show that those kids are paying attention all week. They ran the systems that we wanted to run. It was good. I was pleased. I’m happy for them.”

I don’t think this should come as a surprise. The wider McMaster community is just seeing more of how good this team really is and how much depth it possesses.

Driediger and Khodkevych held the fort for Mac in the middle. One of Guelph’s strengths is to play through the middle of the court, but both Marauder middles neutralized one of Guelph’s strengths to keep them at bay. Outside hitters Craig Ireland and Connor Santoni led the Marauders in scoring with 12.5 and 10.5 points respectively. Matt Passalent and middle Peter Khodkevych added nine apiece.

Ireland stood out. If you’ve ever seen Ireland play, his attacks are vicious and his vertical is bouncy.

“Craig Ireland has really stepped up. His ball control is phenomenal. There’s a reason why he’s one of the best beach players in the country and it shows. He’s developing himself into a really solid indoor passing/power-hitting player,” Preston said. “I really like what he has done especially since he broke his wrist earlier this season. He didn’t play the first half at all. He has kind of been thrown into the fire since December. I think he has responded quite well.”

Another player that stood out for Mac was setter Calvin Lee. Lee passed well and even kept Josh Green in check — one of Guelph’s best offensive threats.

Coach Preston described Lee as an extremely creative and deceptive setter.

“He also changed Green’s shots and made him uncomfortable that way. It kind of set the tone for our defense a bit. I thought Calvin was outstanding especially when he needed to be early. He served extremely well too,” said Preston.

McMaster travels to Windsor and Western this weekend. This week will be about getting healthier and polishing up some details in their execution. First serve at Windsor is on Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. First serve at Western is on Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. In their previous meetings with both of these teams in November, McMaster won in straight sets.

“We’ve got to get some guys reintegrated into our lineup that we’ve been resting for a bit. We’ll do it slowly but our return-to-play process is coming around. We have to work on our transition game. We’re going to make it a lot smoother,” said Preston.

McMaster enters this week with a perfect record of 14-0.

Photo Credit: Alistar Boulby

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