The Holland College Hurricanes blew into town to take on St. Thomas for a double-header weekend. This was the first time these two teams met in the season.
Holland took it to the Tommies early going on a five-point service run from the opening serve. Right out of the gate, the Hurricanes brought an offensive presence that put the Tommies on their heels. The Tommies were unable to earn a service run of more than two consecutive serves.
Hurricanes Sydney Foy and Kendra Dawkins put up big numbers in the first, as it was all Holland, taking the set 25-14.
“They took it to us, they came out stronger than we did, right from the start,” said head coach Don McKay. “Their middles played well, gave balls quicker than our blockers anticipated.”
A much better Tommies squad came out for the second, making fewer mistakes. The Tommies earned their largest lead of the match; Laura MacDonald went on a five-point service run picking up two of three service aces in the match.
After being down for the majority of the set, Holland battled back to tie it up at 17 a piece. After a close latter part of the set, Holland used their quick offense to push past the Tommies block and stole the second set of the game 25-22. That gave them a strangle hold on the match.
“The match went really well, in a game that is very important for us getting to the end of the season,” said Hurricanes head coach Lori-Beth Dwyer.
In a must-win set for the Tommies, the Hurricanes once again came on strong with big offence from Sydney Foy, who finished the game with 12 kills. A quick offence was beating the Tommie block, making it extremely hard for their defense to go to work. The Tommies stayed with the Hurricanes for much of the set but halfway through the Hurricanes took the lead and never looked back winning the set and match 25-15.
“They missed a lot of serves and gave us a chance to get back in it, but…we just didn’t have enough to get there,” said McKay. “Everything was falling in for them.”
Holland scored of a total of 36 kills in the game. The Tommies were only able to pick up 15 kills. On the defensive side, the Hurricanes also played a much stronger digging game, picking up 11 digs to the Tommies four.
“We know that STU has a big block so we’ve been working on speeding up our offense. Laura Ready did a great job speeding up her sets and we had the offense to get the points,” said Dwyer.
On Sunday the Tommies played the Hurricanes again, and the results were more of the same. Though STU put up more of a fight on Sunday, they still lost all three sets. The Tommies record is 10-7, tied for third with UNBSJ.
