HAMILTON (March 10, 2018) - The Queen's Gaels suffered a 3-0 loss to the McMaster Marauders in the Forsyth Cup OUA championship on Saturday night.

The Gaels and Marauders will now both move to the U SPORTS national championship next weekend which will also be hosted by McMaster.

GAME FLOW
After Queen's took the first point in the match, the Marauders came out swinging as they took the next six with two aces from Matt Passalent aiding the cause.

Marauder errors teamed with a Zac Hutcheson (Kingston, Ont.) kill, got Queen's out to a 13-12 lead as they got back into the set. McMaster used home court to their advantage from there, taking six straight points and only allowing four more Gaels points to close out the set 25-17 and open up a 1-0 lead.

Matt Passalent got the Marauder offence going early in the second set picking up a pair of big kills to put the Marauders up 9-3 in the early stages. The Marauders and Gaels went back-and-forth from there, but McMaster just held tight with their six-point lead.  Andrew Richards picked up hard shots late int he set for Mac and they took the second frame 25-15.

In the third set, the Gaels were quick to jump ahead of McMaster looking to extend the match. After trailing 9-7, the Gaels rattled off point in nine of the next 11 to jump ahead of McMaster 16-11 at the technical timeout. Markus Trence (Hockley Valley, Ont.) served up an ace and finished off the run with a kill for the Gaels.

McMaster used the timeout to their advantage, however, as they took 11 of the next 12 points thanks to the serving of Andrew Richards who added another three aces to his game-high total of four.

From there, McMaster just kept pace with Queen's until it was too late for the Gaels. The Marauders took the set 25-21 and the win 3-0.

BY THE NUMBERS
4 - Aces for the Marauders Richards
13 - The last 13 titles in the OUA have been won by either Queen's or McMaster
11 - Kills for Trence to lead the Gaels

UP NEXT
Both teams will be back in action next weekend as they star the U SPORTS national championship which the Marauders will also be hosting. Catch all the action live at USPORTS.live.