Women's Volleyball opened up the 2019-20 regular season against the Seneca Sting on Saturday, October 19th to the tune of a 3-1 victory on the road. The Huskies controlled the offensive pace of the game, outmatching their opponents handily in both kills (32) and total attacks (100) on the way to the 25-19, 25-20, 22-25, 25-19 win.
The team returns seven athletes from last season's squad, including the core strength of All Rookie Team selection Beatriz Vilches coupled with Ashley Lau, Jessica Barrios, Jasmin Walia and Alina Karpovnikova. Third-year Head coach Daphne Choi is looking forward to building quickly on last year's first playoff appearance in the program's history.
"I'm excited about our season", says Choi. "We started off getting back into the OCAA regular season mode right away with a win over Seneca. Our vets, like Jasmin [Walia], showed up to compete even though several were battling sickness. Jasmin fought through the sets to set up our hitters over and over again to take the win."
Walia would finish the game with 24 assists that helped propel the team-leading 29 attacks and 10 kills by Jessica Barrios, and 27 attacks and 10 kills by Ashley Lau (including four service aces).
On the Men's side, an inspired squad came out firing, completing the Seneca sweep for the night with a dominating straight-set win of 25-15, 25-13, 25-13.
2018-19 All Star Vivek Mathimakki continued his perennial strong play at the net with 21 attacks and 11 kills. An efficient overall Huskies offence would turn around 32 kills on 71 total attacks for the evening.
This season's roster will see six additional returners from last year's line up alongside Mathimakki, including 5th year outside hitter and newly appointed team captain Yuseph Jackman, Kendrick Gamsawen, Nathanael Masson and Stefane Veniza. Former OCAA East Division Coach of the Year Garrett May was pleased with his team's performance out of the gates. "I was very happy with the way our guys played", said May. "There was some uncertainty to how good of a team we could be coming into the season, but after this match it's clear we are capable of great things".
Next up, the teams will stand their ground at home on Saturday October 26th and Sunday October 27th versus the visiting Coyotes de La Cité and Algonquin Thunder. First serve for the Women is schedule for 1pm, Men at 3pm, in the Alex Barbier Gym - St. James Campus Athletic Centre.
Or watch the action on OCAA LIVE from our LiveStream Page!
