The Gaels narrowly claimed third place in the OUA East and will be on the road to start the OUA playoffs as they visit the Western Mustangs Saturday afternoon at 4:30 pm. The match in London, Ontario can be seen live on OUA.tv.

While the Gaels closed out the OUA regular season with a 10-8 record to claim third in the OUA East, the Western Mustangs finished with a 14-3 record to take second in the West.

The winner will advance to the OUA Final Four and will take on the winner of the Ryerson and Waterloo matchup.

SEASON MEETING
The two teams faced off just once in the regular season and saw the match go the distance to five sets with the home side Mustangs coming away with a win back in November.

Despite not having Zac Hutcheson who missed the first-half of the season due to injury, the Gaels were able to push Western in their home gym thanks to a balanced attack that saw four Gaels with 10 or more kills lead by 17 from Markus Trence. Rookie setter Zane Grossinger finished with 45 assists and 10 digs in the matchup that ended in a fifth set 15-13 loss for the Gaels.

HITTING THEIR STRIDE
It can certainly be said that the Gaels have started to hit their stride as the season started to close. Queen's needed wins to not only stay in the playoff hunt but keep their hopes of locking down the third place spot alive and they were able to do just that. Queen's closed out the season with four straight victories losing just one set along the way while defeating first-place Ryerson in straight sets in Kingston.

The improvement all season of the young team that features three OUA All-Rookies from 2016-17 in Joel Rudd, Malcolm Prentice and Lukas Kaufman and two potential OUA All-Rookies for 2017-18 in Grossinger and Mitchell Neuert has seen the Gaels improve their game at the right time of the year.

ROOKIE VS VETERAN SETTER
Saturday's matchup will feature one of the better setters in the OUA in Western's fourth-year Matt Hooker against Gaels first-year Grossinger. The duo sits second and third in the OUA in assists per set respectively at 9.82 and 9.72.

Hooker is a former OUA All-Rookie team member while Grossinger, in just his first year, looks to be in the running for the honour as a freshman himself.

WILLIS' FINAL RUN
Long-time head coach Brenda Willis is set to retire after the season but not before a long playoff run. Willis has won six OUA championships with the Gaels and recently recorded win 364, the most for any Queen's volleyball coach. 

There have been only two schools to have won the Forsyth Memorial Trophy since 2005-06, and they are Queen's (4) and McMaster (8).