The York Lions men's volleyball team took the short trip to downtown Toronto this evening to take on the TMU Bold in the first game of the fresh season. Coming off a strong year that had them deep in the playoff mix, the Lions are on the hunt to take a step further and compete for an OUA championship this season.
The Lions quickly grabbed a lead in the first set, with three early kills from Chris Hoffman and service errors from TMU. York was able to cling to a small lead throughout the match thanks to the efforts of Colby Soolsma, making his Lions debut, who dropped 6 kills and a service ace in the set. His team pulled away with the largest lead of the night, and finished off a 25-20 set win to go up 1-0 in the match.
York quickly jumped out to a 4-0 lead to start the second, another three kills coming from Hoffman before the Lions hit their 10th point. The Lions pushed to a 16-8 lead midway through, forcing a TMU timeout. Bodhi Jones got in on the action himself, adding three kills of his own, and York held off a late TMU run to capture another 25-20 set victory. Going up 2-0, they looked to keep their pressure up and close out the match in the minimum sets.
After a series of Lions attack errors, TMU found their first lead of the match, a 7-4 opening that forced a Lions timeout. The Bold kept clinging to a four point lead throughout the set, taking advantage of a stalling Lions attack. A flurry of kills forced another Lions timeout, who came out of it and fought back to within one of the deficit, but still found themselves down late in the set. York rallied to find a string of kills from Soolsma and Dennis Cota, but it was still back and forth with the Bold having the slight edge. However, an attack error and another kill from Jones finally saw the Lions tie it up at 23-23. Kills from Jasraj Nijjar and a service ace from Cota completed the comeback of a 25-23 set win, and allowed them to sweep the Bold 3-0.
Looking Ahead: The 1-0 Lions will look to get the same result in a rematch with the TMU Bold tomorrow night on Friday, October 24th. Tipoff is set for 8:00pm, with coverage on OUA TV.
