By: Ted Simpson
The Thunder women’s volleyball team closed out the first half of the season on a high note Dec. 1 completing a three game win streak with a 3-1 win over third place Cambrian College.
The last week of play for this semester saw a much improved overall game from the Thunder with wins over George Brown and Boreal on Nov. 23 and 30, respectively. On the other side, Cambrian was having a very successful season, coming into the game with a 6-1 record. For the eighth-place Thunder, taking home the victory was a major accomplishment.
“It’s a great way to finish the semester,” said head coach Everton Senior.
Both teams came out strong in the first set, but The Golden Shield were able to take the first by a slight margin at 25-23. The Thunder held together and played a solid set, while Cambrian started to suffer from mistakes on the court.
“I thought we played well the entire match,” said Senior. “We were still a little intimidated because we knew the firepower that Cambrian had, and that they could come back on us, and we kind of let that into our heads instead of believing that we’re good enough to win. We could have wilted after that first set or decided that we’re good enough to play with these guys and beat them, and we did the latter and that was great.”
The Thunder powered through the second set, winning 25-20. From there they stayed on top of the game taking the next set 25-17 and eventually taking the match in three straight consecutive sets.
Thunder left side, Nicole O’Donoughue, gave a stand-out performance with a long string of back-to-back kills to keep the Thunder in a strong lead.
The month of November ended in strong contrast to how it began for the Thunder. With a string of losses in the first two weeks, the Thunder seemed to be in bad shape after losing a close match Nov. 21 to La Cité Collégiale, who they are currently tied with in the standings.
“I think maybe that loss might have been a good thing, it made us realize that we are not good enough to just walk into a gym and think we can beat a team,” said Senior. “We refocused and just started playing better volleyball and it culminated in this match tonight.”
With the end of the semester and exams coming up, the Thunder have an opportunity to rest up and work on their game before the season resumes Jan. 11.
“After exams we’ll start to get back into the gym and gradually work on a few things, a few errors that we’re still making, shore up our block and try and speed up our offense for the second semester,” said Senior.