GUELPH, Ont. (February 7, 2015) - The Queen's Gaels (12-7) closed out their regular season with a tough five set loss to the Guelph Gryphons (11-8) in Guelph on Saturday night with set scores 25-22, 28-30, 20-25, 25-13, 15-7. The loss means the Gaels will finish in fourth place in the OUA East and will face Toronto in the playoffs.

Ali Shamie (Toronto) finished with a season high 46 assists for the Gaels while Brett Hagarty (Aurora, Ont.) led the scoring with 21 points while adding 17 digs and three blocks. The Gryphons saw a strong effort from Rebecca Breau who led the match with 22.5 points and added 17 digs of her own.

The first set opened up with the Gryphons pulling ahead to an 8-3 advantage. From there Queen's rallied off 10 of the next 11 points and were ahead 13-9. From there it was back and forth for the remainder of the set before a Gaels error and Shannon Morelli kill sealed the set for Guelph.

Queen's battled back in the second set, after trailing 12-8 the Gaels put together an eight point run led by three Brett Hagarty kills to jump in front. With the Gryphons forcing extra points in the set it was Niki Slikboer (Seagrave, Ont.) who was able to put together back-to-back kills followed up by a Shannon Neville (Cambridge, Ont.) kill to take the set.

After taking leads of 6-1 and 15-11 the Gaels were in conrol in the third set. They ended up with a 25-20 set win to go up 2-1 in the match thanks to Gryphon errors.

From there on Guelph took control of the match however. An eight point run near the start of the match followed by the Gryphons recording eight of the final nine points in the match forced a fifth and deciding set in the game.

Guelph continued to take advantage in the final set jumping out ahead to an early lead and never looking back. Final set went to Guelph 15-7.

Despite the loss the Gaels have qualified for the playoffs coming in 4th in the OUA East. Queen's will travel to Toronto to take on the Varsity Blues next week.