The York University Lions men's volleyball team is in Saskatoon this week for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championship tournament. The Lions are competing at the event for the first time in 10 years.
 
Setting the Scene
 
The Lions had a slow start to the season but peaked at the right time to punch their ticket to the national championships.
 
The Lions began the year in the CIS Top 10 at No. 9, their first appearance in the national rankings in more than eight years, but they struggled to string together a series of wins when the regular season began and had a record of 8-7 with three weeks remaining. That early stretch included a four-set win over the Waterloo Warriors in the season opener, as well as a four-set win over the defending CIS silver-medallist Western Mustangs, and they also dropped matches to OUA rivals McMaster, Ryerson and Queen's.
 
However, they found their peak at the right time and put together a five-match winning streak to end the season, a run that included a five-set victory over the No. 10 nationally-ranked Rams and another four-set win over the Mustangs. The strong finish helped them slide into the fourth spot in the OUA standings on the final weekend of the regular season, earning them a home playoff game in the quarter-finals.
 
The Lions relied on a mix of veteran players and rookies to get the job done this season. Their leading scorer was OUA all-star and CIS all-Canadian Ray Szeto, who has blossomed into one of the most dominant outside hitters in the country. In his final season with the program, he finished fifth in the OUA in scoring while surpassing the 1,000-kill mark, becoming the first York player to eclipse the barrier in program history.
 
Fellow vets Nikola Sandic and Marko Dakic, a fifth-year setter and fourth-year outside hitter, respectively, also carried the team for large parts of the season. Sandic, the starting setter for the first time in his career after previously playing at outside hitter and libero, finished the regular season ranked second in the OUA in assists, affirming the decision to move him to the position was the right one. Dakic finished fourth in team scoring while holding down the left side.
 
The rest of the major contributions came from a pair of rookies in outside hitter Josh Henderson and middle blocker Arthur Swarcz. Henderson had one of the most impressive rookie seasons in recent memory, earning the OUA rookie of the year award while finishing in the OUA top 10 in a number of statistical categories, including sixth in scoring. Swarcz, meanwhile, was a starting middle blocker and earned OUA all-rookie team honours.
 
Henderson was also an all-rookie team member and earned a place on the OUA second all-star team, while Szeto was a first-team all-star for the third straight year.
 
How They Got Here
 
Thanks to their strong regular-season finish, the Lions finished two points ahead of the Gaels and earned the right to host them in the quarter-finals. The draw was a tough one as the Gaels represented one of only two teams the Lions did not beat in the regular season – No. 1 McMaster was the other – and the Lions started slowly, dropping the first set. However, they rallied to win the next three and take the match, moving into the OUA Final Four Championships for the second time in three seasons.
 
The Lions were upended by the Warriors in the OUA semifinals in four sets, winning the first set but failing to carry that momentum into any of the next three. With a spot at the CIS championships on the line in the bronze-medal match, the Lions dropped the first two sets to the Windsor Lancers and appeared to be on the way home empty-handed. However, they started to roll at the beginning of the third and took the next two sets to even the match. Windsor promptly won the first three points in the fifth set, and held an 8-5 advantage at the switch, but thanks to some clutch serving by Henderson the Lions went on a run to go up 14-9. The Lancers delayed the end of the match with two straight points, but a huge Henderson kill that caught the edge of the back line won the match for the Lions.
 
National Championship History
 
The last time the Lions played at the CIS championships was in 2005, when they went in as OUA champions. Since 1980, they have competed at the national tournament seven times (prior to this year), winning a bronze medal in 1989.