by Duncan Forbes
The Tigers men’s volleyball team came into the season with a formidable core of players that had been the cornerstones of the program for the last few years. They finished sixth in the CIS last year after winning the AUS championship, and Jonathan Macdonald was named a CIS second team all-star while Matthew Donovan was named to the CIS all-rookie team. Macdonald, along with teammates Connor Maessen and Kristen O’Brien were also named AUS all-stars.
Long-time Tigers head coach Dan Ota knew his team had a legitimate chance to make serious noise not only in the AUS, but on a national stage as well.
“I think that this group has as good of a shot as any team I’ve coached in recent years,” says Ota. “The same group of starters have been together for almost two years, and I think they’ve benefitted from winning and losing together in the most pressure-packed environments. There is greater clarity in what they need to do and how they need to do it, as well as a better understanding and appreciation of what each person contributes to the group.”
The Tigers first appearance on the court was a two-game set on Thanksgiving weekend against the Queen’s University Gaels. Fifth-year outside hitter Bryan Duquette and Kristen O’Brien led the Tigers to victories in both games as the Tigers dropped only one set all weekend.
Later in the month, they kicked off their regular season at the first AUS-RSEQ interlock event at Memorial University. After putting away the Montreal Carabins with ease in their first game, the Tigers rallied back to victory after dropping the first set against Sherbrooke. In the Tigers final game against the Laval Rouge et Or, Bryan Duquette powered them to a 3-0 win with a 15 kill, 8 dig performance.
Their first matchup against long-time AUS rival UNB came on November 1 and the cast aside any doubt that they were the team to beat in the AUS with two gritty performances. After they won the first set easily 25-12, the Varsity Reds fought back to win the second set 26-24 as the Tigers let the lead slip out of their hands. The Tigers regrouped and won the next two sets (27-25, 25-20) to take the match 3-1. The next day, the Tigers swept the V-Reds after a marathon third set victory of 31-29 to take the 3-0 win.
A pair of 3-0 victories at home against the Memorial Sea-Hawks two weeks later extended the Tigers undefeated streak to seven regular season games. While this hot start might have been unexpected to some, coach Ota isn’t surprised at all.
“We surprised a lot of people with our success last season,” explains Ota. “We had a young team made up of mostly local Nova Scotian athletes who have never had much success at the national level.”
He says that the team’s success at the national level put a lot of eyes on the Tigers going into this season.
“We knew that we would have a much bigger target on our backs, but internally our expectations of ourselves and of each other have been extremely high,” says Ota. “We have a clear understanding of what we need to do every day in order to have success and the commitment level to that process has been exceptional. Given our high level of execution, I don’t think that anyone in our program has been surprised by the level of success that we have experienced so far this season.”
The team headed to Montreal the next weekend for the second AUS-RSEQ interlock event. After grabbing a 3-0 victory to open the event against Sherbrooke, the Tigers eight-game winning streak was snapped at the hands of the Rouge et Or who won 3-2 (25-16, 32-30, 25-23, 22-25, 15-11) despite a 17 kill, 14 dig performance by Bryan Duquette.
Later that day, the Tigers faced the host Montreal Carabins to finish off the interlock. After dropping the first set 25-27, the Tigers battled back to win the second set 25-18. The stage was set for a fifth and final set after the two teams split the third and fourth sets and the Tigers came out on top 15-11 to win the game 3-2.
With a 9-1 record, the Tigers are in firm control of the AUS and they are ten points ahead of second-place UNB. Bryan Duquette leads the AUS with 3.39 kills per set as well as digs per set with 2.48 and the fifth-year team captain has led the team all season long.
“He’s consistently performed at a very high level this season,” notes Ota. “He has been one of the top overall players in the conference for a while, but this year he’s taken his offensive game to another level.”
He also points to the progression of second-year libero Adam Sandeson, who is fourth in the AUS with 2.27 digs per game.
“Adam has given us a very consistent level of serve reception that creates a significant offensive advantage for our team,” explains Ota. “As a result we are one of the most efficient teams in the country. All of our players have made significant improvements in their games, but Adam’s improvement had a huge impact on our team’s success.”
The Tigers 9-1 record has been impressive thus far, but Ota and the rest of the Tigers squad know that they will have to keep working hard every day to help achieve their goal of being competitive at the national championship at the end of February in Saskatchewan.
“Early in the season, we discussed measurable performance levels that needed to be reached if we expected to be competitive at a national championship,” says Ota. “We were able to reach those performance levels for most of the fall semester, but our opponents continue to get better each week and the performance goals are becoming more difficult to obtain. The challenge for our group is understanding what was good enough in the fall will not be good enough in the winter.”
Opening the season ranked tenth in the CIS, the Tigers have been ranked as high as fifth and they currently sit in seventh position in the nation. They’ll head down to St. Petersburg, Florida at the beginning of January to compete in McMaster’s Alden Cup, a tournament featuring eight CIS teams that are currently or have been in the top ten this season as they look to contend for a national championship.