Juliana Tebrake, left, and Brooke Sheldrick, middle, block the ball against the Durham Lords on Jan. 30. The Thunder play their next game at home when they host the La Cité Coyotes on Feb. 12.

Women’s volleyball team defeat Loyalist, eye home court advantage

Juliana Tebrake, left, and Brooke Sheldrick, middle, block the ball against the Durham Lords on Jan. 30. The Thunder play their next game at home when they host the La Cité Coyotes on Feb. 12.
Juliana Tebrake, left, and Brooke Sheldrick, middle, block the ball against the Durham Lords on Jan. 30. The Thunder play their next game at home when they host the La Cité Coyotes on Feb. 12.

Algonquin’s women’s volleyball team now sit comfortably in fourth place in the east division of the OCAA.

The Algonquin Thunder defeated the Georgian Grizzlies on Feb. 6, by a score of 3-1. The Grizzlies won the first set 27-25. The second set was just as tight as the Thunder won 30-28. However Algonquin pulled away winning the next two sets in a dominant fashion capping off a successful weekend.

The Thunder also shut down the ninth place George Brown Huskies. After being tied 1-1 Algonquin took the Huskies by storm winning the game 3-1 and capping off the fourth and final set by a blowout score of 25-8.

In a battle for fourth place in the east division, the Thunder defeated the Loyalist Lancers in four sets.

The Thunder and the Lancers traded the first two sets, but Algonquin took the third set and fourth sets in a dominant fashion. Breanne Scheerhoorn led the Thunder with 15 kills.

It was very important for us to not overlook them (Loyalist),” said Sarah Aubin, who plays right side/middle for Algonquin. “The game was a big determining factor for where we want to finish to be able to have a decent crossover in playoffs.”

Algonquin fell short to the Durham Lords on Jan. 29 at home losing a nail-biter that went to five sets. The Thunder and the Lords traded the first four sets back and forth. The fifth and final set needed the extra point for Durham to close out by a score of 16-14.

It just came down to the end when we made a couple of mistakes,” said Everton Senior, the head coach of team. “Sets two and four were bad sets but we always managed to come back from that but we made key errors that gave them (Durham) the lead going into the changeover and we let them off the hook.”

In the game that saw 10 different Algonquin players on the court, Julianna Tebrake led the team with 12 kills and 8 blocks.

Despite the loss, this is a different Thunder team, than the one that was on a three game losing streak to open 2016.

Our mental state has changed, we lost some players from first semester to second semester and just getting over that and getting back to the rhythm of things has really helped us out,” said Tebrake

The Algonquin Thunder play their final game of the regular season at home hosting rival La Cite Coyotes on Feb. 12 at 7 p.m.