The Windsor Lancers women's volleyball team played their first game of 2020 visiting the Ryerson Rams in a Saturday night showdown at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto.  The Lancers battled hard against a notoriously strong Ryerson program but ultimately fell 3-1 (25-20, 18-25, 21-25, and 18-25) to the Rams managing to win only the first set.
 
The effort was still an impressive one to start off the second half of the season. As it is worth noting to Lancer fans as a reminder, the Lancer ladies have been and are still shorthanded this season, without the services one of their key players in the program in local veteran outside hitter Paige Phills who remains out indefinitely for the season with a pre-season injury. Still in Phills' absence on the court, the young resilient Lancer squad had a good 2019 and managed to put up good fight against the Rams who currently sit atop the standings in the OUA Eastern Conference. The team continues to play well as a unit and is continuing to build for future success for the program.  With Saturday's loss, the Lancers now drop to 3-6 on the season.    
 
GAME STATS
Lancers sophomore middle Ally Winik led the way for the Lancer ladies offensively recording an impressive 14 kills on the night. Fourth-year veteran, Lexi Pollard, had 9 kills and rookie Yaila Sealy continued to impress as well, chipping in offensively with 8 kills of her own.
 
Third-year setter Brooke Davis dished out 37 assists in the loss giving her the helping hands on the majority of the offence.  Defensively, fourth-year libero Amie Slawson dug up 19 attacks giving her the lead for most digs on the night between both teams. 
 
Lauren Veltman led Ryerson offensively with 15 kills in her team's win over Windsor.  
 
GAME FLOW
In the first set, the Lancers did a nice job of holding their own against the powerful Rams squad. The blue and gold held the lead throughout most of the set thanks to strong offence generated off of Davis' diverse distribution of sets to her teammates. Winik, Sealy, and Pollard managed to capitalize on those opportunities and the consistent team play led them to take the first set out of the hands of the Rams by winning the set 25-20 and leading the match 1-0. 
 
In the second set, the Rams began to wake up although the set started off similar to the first with both sides trading points and keeping a close distance to each other on the scoreboard. Until midway through the set when the Rams started to breakaway with the lead after breaking an 11-11 tie to go up on a six unanswered point run to lead 17-11 before Windsor started trying to get back in the match by nipping at the Ryerson lead.  However, it would not be enough for the Lancers as the ladies dropped the second set to the Rams 25-18. 
 
For the third set, it was a very similar start to the previous two sets of both teams trading points but this time it was not until the later stages of the set that the Rams started to pull away again and take control. Despite the Lancers hanging around the Rams would keep their foot on the gas to take the third set 25-21 and going up 2-1 in the match. 
 
The fourth set was very similar to the second set where both teams started off strong until Ryerson managed to grab hold of the set towards the midway mark and never let go which ultimately led them to take the fourth set 25-18 and the match 3 sets to 1. 
 
UP NEXT
The Lancers will head home now and prepare for their next match on Friday January 17th when they host the RMC Paladins at the Dennis Fairall Fieldhouse. First serve is scheduled for 6PM. You can purchase your tickets here at www.goLancers.ca/tickets or you can tune in to the action broadcasted live on OUA.tv.