By George Nassios
After getting beaten up in four of their first five OUA league games, Ryerson’s women’s volleyball team spiked the University of Ottawa Gee Gees on Saturday, Nov. 18.
The Rams swept the Gee Gees in three straight sets to raise their record 2-4. The team finally delivered the type of performance head coach Arif Nathoo knows they’re capable of.
“It’s been a long time since we played this well,” he said. “We began the season with a lot of optimism and hopefully we are back on track.”
The Rams won the first two matches by scores of 25-19, and won the third set 25-17.
The turning point came in the second set, when Nathoo called a timeout with his team trailing 16-13. After a few words of inspiration his players went back to work and rallied for four consecutive points, before winning the set.
“I just told my players to hang in there and stay composed because Ottawa’s going to make mistakes,” Nathoo said. “And that’s what happened. Ottawa made some errors and we took advantage.”
The Rams hope the win over Ottawa (1-6) will help turn around what has so far been a disappointing regular season. The team appeared ready to challenge for a playoff spot after a stellar preseason in which they won a tournament at Queen’s University and placed third at their own tournament.
But the Rams started the regular season poorly, losing several games they felt they could have won.
Marijana Curic, a third-year middle, believes Saturday’s game will help the Rams forget about the awful start.
“I think [Saturday’s] game will enhance our performance in future games,” she said.
“It was fun to play today,” said Carly Price, an offside who’s in her fourth year with the team. “Hopefully we can continue playing well. We’ve got three home games coming up and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”
The women’s next game is Friday night against the University of Waterloo at 6 p.m. in Kerr gym,
On Tuesday both the men’s and women’s teams took on the University of Toronto.
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