Thursday, January 18th saw the Niagara College women's volleyball program drop a hard fought 3-1 match to the OCAA's top-ranked Humber Hawks at the Welland Athletic Centre. The set scores in the contest were 25-18, 25-22, 23-25, 25-20. The win sees the Hawks improve to 11-0 while the OCAA's No. 4 ranked Knights fall to 7-4.
The match saw two of the top OCAA women's volleyball powerhouses trade blows all throughout the evening, with both sides leaning heavily on their respective dynamic outside hitter duos.
"Not the result we wanted, but I am happy with how we played our first three sets," said Knights head coach Nathan Janzen. "Even after dropping the first two sets, I am proud of the effort level we had throughout the night."
The Knights' tandem of Jordan Koslowski (Hamilton) and Rachel Rivers (Cambridge) finished with 14 and 13 points respectively. While the Hawks' Brynne Spence-Coleman and Breanna Golding finished with 18 and 16 points each.
The Knights also received solid contributions from rookies Melissa McFadden (Hannon) and Ainsleigh McInnes-Williams (Mount Hope). Williams paced the Knights defensively finishing with a team high 16 digs, while McFadden quarterbacked the Niagara offense to the tune of 31 assists.
The 7-4 Knights (3rd OCAA West) will have little time to reflect on the loss as the team will travel to Hamilton on Saturday, January 20th to take on the Mohawk Mountaineers.
