KINGSTON, Ont. (October 29, 2016)- The Queen's Gaels (1-0) hosted the Trent Excalibur (0-1) in their opening of OUA regular season play today. The game was the first for the Trent Excalibur in the OUA, as they are in their first season in the league.
GAME FLOW
The Gaels took the lead promptly, holding a strong defence by putting up big blocks from Markus Trence (Orangeville, Ont.) and Malcolm Prentice (Oakville, Ont.). The team also excelled in their offence with a hitting percentage of .440. The final set score of 25-9 was an strong showing to open the OUA regular season.
The second set saw the Gaels step up their offence posing a kill percentage of .574. Jamie Wright (Kingston, Ont.) was strong defensively for Queen's with eight digs throughout the game, the Gaels digging 34 balls throughout the match. Queen's had multiple runs of 5+ points in the second set and were able to come out with another win. The final score of the second set was 25-10.
In the third and final set the Gaels prevailed as they took over the scoreboard. Big kills by Zac Hutcheson (Kingston, Ont.) led the Gaels on a big run as they were in total control all afternoon. The Gaels dominated with a final score of 25-12.
An honourable mention goes to, Joel Rudd (Cambridge, Ont.) who had his debut game and finished with a hitting percentage of .900 with nine massive kills throughout today's match.
FINAL SAY
"I think, and considering the youth of our team I think we played very disciplined and we in total only have one attack error in the match, this is an unheard of percentage so that's great (.615), if we can even retain a .400 we can be very competitive but we knew this would be more of a learning thing for them (Trent) than us we have been playing against the best teams in the country in exhibition to prepare us for this season." - Brenda Willis
BY THE NUMBERS
3 - Players Rudd, Lukas Kaufman (Stratford, Ont.) and Prentice had their debut regular season game today for the Gaels in the OUA
41- The number of kills made by the Gaels
8- The number of service aces by the Gaels
UP NEXT
The Gaels will be staying in Kingston where they will be hosting the Ryerson Rams on November 4th at 8pm. The game will be streamed live on OUA.tv.
