The Windsor Lancers men's volleyball team hosted the Queen's Gaels on Friday night for a chance to earn an OUA banner inside of the Toldo Lancer Centre for the first time in program history competing for the Forsyth Cup on home court.
The blue and gold were mightily tested by a determined Gaels team who were locked in all throughout and did not allow themselves to lose focus at all among a sellout TLC crowd packed with Lancer faithful and Windsor area community volleyball fans who showed up and showed out with a raucous spirit.
However, ultimately Queen's spoiled the Lancers potential gold medal aspirations on home court serving them their first loss of the season at home with a 3-1 (26-28, 25-21, 28-26, and 25-16) golden victory as the visitors to lay claim to the 2024-25 OUA Championship banner and be awarded the Forsyth Cup and gold medals while the Lancers took home silvers. This was the second silver awarded to the Lancers in the last three seasons and in the program's history.
GAME STATS
Windsor was led by Darian Koskie and Chase Bridges offensively who both ended the game with 9 kills each. Anthony Ivanovski had 7 kills and 3 service aces from the line.
League MVP Markus Law-Heese had 5 block points and dished out 37 assists in the heartbreaking loss.
Queen's was led offensively by Zig Licis who had 22 kills and 3 service aces while Reed Venning earned 15 kills and 2 service aces. Dax Tompkins also stood out for the tricolour with 9 block points up at the net. The Gaels setter Chris Zimmerman had 45 assists helping propel his team to gold to capture the title on the road in Windsor.
GAME FLOW
The first set was a back-and-forth battle between both sides. The Lancers held a lead as high as five points toward the midway mark of the set which then Queen's was able to inch back from.
Each team held a slim one-point lead throughout the rest of the set trading points up until the Gaels were able to round out the first set on top 28-26 to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
Another see-saw tilt was seen in the second set in the beginning with both teams swapping points early on before Windsor broke open a three-point gap. The Gaels tenaciously battled back to overcome the deficit and create a three-point lead of their own flipping the script on the blue and gold. The tricolour received a massive kill from Tompkins to put the cherry on top of set two 25-21 and acquired a 2-0 match advantage.
Queen's started out the third set with a 4-0 lead before Windsor got on the board and responded with a kill from Ivanovski to hatch open the goose egg. The Gaels held the
lead throughout the early stages of the set before the Lancers caught up and grabbed their first lead of the set at 13-12.
From that point on the two teams who share blue and gold engaged once more in another resilient skirmish to round out the set. With the atmosphere buzzing around the TLC and an at capacity crowd in the house, the Lancers did their best to stave off being swept in front of their passionate fans to earn a 28-26 win in the third set to prolong the match courtesy of Bridges set clinching kill to make it 2-1 Gaels.
With the crowd's spirits lifted and rejuvenated, the Lancers opened the scoring in the fourth set hoping it would energize them to push toward triggering a potential fifth set.
However, Queen's did not allow that to happen breaking open a commanding 9-1 lead and forcing the Lancers to have to use both of their timeouts early on in the set with their lofty lead.
Windsor would respond with some fight hoping to once again persevere and put on a show for their rowdy and passionate fans taking in the match inside the TLC.
The blue and gold were able to claw back as close as five points before the Gaels proved to be too much for the Lancers to handle down the stretch running out of points on the board with Queen's cruising to a 25-16 close out to claim a golden 3-1 victory and earn the Forsyth Cup on the road silencing the full house crowd with their upset league topping win and emerging as OUA champions for the first time since 2020.
UP NEXT
The season is not over yet for the Lancers who will now look ahead to nationals as both teams qualified last weekend to earn the right to compete at the 2025 USPORTS national championships in Brandon, Manitoba from March 21st-23rd. More details regarding the Lancers upcoming nationals schedule will be released this upcoming week so stay tuned volleyball fans for full bracket and first match up details.
