KINGSTON, Ont. (January 18, 2015) – This Sunday the Gaels (9-5) saw their six game winning streak snapped as they were defeated by the No.2 McMaster Marauders (13-1) in a hard fought three sets 3-0.
 
In the first set the Marauders opened the scoring with an unstoppable cross-court kill to start a 4-0 run.  The scoring went back and forth between the two teams as they exchanged a run of serving errors until McMaster managed to take a slight lead over the Gaels.   The Marauders took a five point lead but despite attacking efforts from Queen's senior players Philippe Goyer (Ottawa), Mike Tomlinson (Stratford, Ont.) and Markus Trence (Orangevile, Ont.) to keep the set going, McMaster's Stephen Maar ended the set with a kill 25-21.
 
McMaster took an early lead in the second set as the Gaels struggled to find their way through the Marauders defensive wall.  Scott Brunet (Calgary, Alta.) led the defensive efforts for Queen's with three huge blocks to shutdown McMaster attacks.   Once again it was a close game until the 19-point mark where the Marauders created some space with six consecutive points to take the set 25-20.
 
An unlucky touch by the Gaels gave the Marauders the opening point in the final set.  McMaster took an early lead but the Gaels managed to fight back with strong attacks from Tomlinson and Brunet.  The Marauders led an unstoppable attack and pushed ahead on the scoreboard.  Two final attacks from the afternoon's top scorer with 14 kills, Danny Demyznenko, finished the set 25-19 for the Marauders.

"We knew we were in tough against McMaster there is a reason they are the number two team in the country," said head coach Brenda Willis after the match. "We did a lot of the things that we hoped to do really well, I thought our offence with a lot of different shots put them in trouble. We were tipping well doing a lot of different things to score but after 20 our passing broke down in all three sets and we can't run off of bad passes against a team that good."
 
Markus Trence and Mike Tomlinson led the attack for the Gaels against today's opponents.  Trence with 12 kills and one assisted block while Tomlinson had eight kills, two serving aces and three assisted blocks.  Despite the loss, Brunet and Ivo Dramov (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) put in their best defensive efforts, Brunet with four blocks and Dramov with 10 digs for the Gaels. 
 
The Gaels are back in action next Saturday as they host the Toronto Varsity Blues at 3pm in the ARC main gym.