By Jack Longo
After a disappointing 2021-22 season, the Dalhousie Tigers men’s volleyball team is looking for growth and breakout performances from everyone on the roster this year.
Last year’s team went through a difficult campaign that was interrupted by a stoppage in play due to COVID-19, ultimately finishing the season with a regular season record of 2-9. Although the Tigers barely missed out on a playoff spot, head coach Dan Ota knows where his team needs to improve both collectively and individually this season.
“As our record indicated, we were not a consistently competitive team in our league last season,” says Ota. “We just missed out on playoffs last season, and we have a lot of work ahead to rectify that.”
“Our serve reception and attacking are the biggest priorities for us. We were bottom of the league in both those areas and the data clearly showed that it cost us games.”
On the other hand, a highlight for the Tigers last season was the performance of Michael Donovan who earned a spot on the U SPORTS all-rookie team. Donovan finished second in the RSEQ conference in kills per set (4.14) and points per set (4.8) and tied for the conference lead in aces.
This season, Donovan will be amongst a group of leaders on this young team. Ota highlights Donovan, Quinton Dowling, and Justin Cross as three players that will “do most of the heavy lifting on the court”.
Ota has already seen improvements over last year during pre-season training and highlights the dynamic between the new and returning players as a reason why.
“We’re already a better team than we were at any point last season. We had a strong recruiting class, and a couple of new players who are likely to play a lot for us this season. More importantly, there is noticeable improvement from our key returning players.”
“With nine new faces, there’s no question that there is a different group dynamic,” adds Ota. “Our returning players, who are also pretty young for the most part, learned how hard it is to win in our league last year.”
Ota also doesn’t pull any punches when describing what needs to happen for this team to achieve their goals.
“Everyone on the floor will need to ‘breakout’ this season if we expect to be competitive. There is no one on our squad that was among the best in the league at their position last season, so there is clearly plenty of room for improvement.”
Ota knows very well how tough it is to be competitive in the RESQ due to the quality of opponents. Notably, the Sherbrooke Vert et Or won a bronze medal at the U SPORTS championship last season. But the room for improvement is clear with this season’s team and the work has already begun to try and hit those benchmarks.
“If we expect to be a playoff team this season, that implies that we are winning more matches in a very tough league. Last season we were at the bottom of the league in some key metrics so there are some clear areas where we need to upgrade if we expect to be competitive.”
“The message in all of our practices has been to set the bar with a clear understanding of how good we need to be to win.”
The first test for the Tigers comes Friday, October 21 when the Tigers host l‘Université de Laval Rouge et Or for the first of a two-game series at Dalplex.
They’ll play another two-game series at home with Sherbrooke November 11-12. After the holiday break, they’ll host Montréal January 27-28 and UNB February 3-4.