Lakers take silver in provincial final

Defending champs the Humber Hawks captured their sixth straight OCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship title on Saturday, defeating the Nipissing Lakers in three straight sets: 25-20, 25-19 and 25-15.In the final matchup of the 2013 Championships at Trent University, the defending champs showed that they came to play in the opening set taking it 25-20. Nipissing fought hard in the second but could not stop the Humber attack as the Hawks won 25-19 and moved within one set of a Gold Medal. The third set proved why Humber has won the past five Provincial Championships as they controlled the pace throughout the final set winning 25-15.
Humber roared out to a demanding 6-0 lead in the opening set before the Lakers were able to get their first stop. Nipissing cut the initial lead in half after their slow start making it 6-3 before Humber regained their serve. After some back and forth volleyball, the Lakers moved within a point of Humber keeping the score tight at 12-11 midway through the set. Both team remained close with the score reaching 15-14 for Humber before the Hawks gave a big push and took a three point advantage. Humber moved to 20-16 late in the set as the Lakers decided to take a timeout. After the timeout, both teams swapped points as the Hawks held onto their lead taking the opening set 25-200.
The second set had Nipissing getting off to a better start than the first keeping Humber within a point until the Hawks started to edge ahead grabbing the advantage at 9-5 leading into the Lakers first timeout. Nipissing fought hard tostay in the set following their timeout but were unable to cut into Humber’s four point lead as the score sat at 15-11 at the midpoint. Humber displayed their dominance in the second half of the set extending their lead to 19-11 forcing the Lakers to use up their final timeout. Nipissing put their best foot forward taking 3 points back from the Hawks coming out of their timeout but it was short lived as Humber finished the set at 25-19 and moved ahead 2-0 in the match.
Humber came out strong once again in the third taking a 9-4 lead as Nipissing decided to take their first timeout to regroup. After the timeout, Humber picked up another three unanswered point increasing their lead to 12-4 before the Lakers managed to get a stop. Nipissing attempted to climb back into the set moving within 4 points of the Hawks but Humber put a stop to that reopening their lead up to 8 points forcing the Lakers to take their final timeout at 17-9. After attempting to rally the team together in their final timeout, Humber strength proved to be too much for the Nipissing squad as the Hawks moved on to take the set 25-15 and claimed their sixth consecutive Provincial Championship.
Player of the Game for the victorious Humber Hawks was #14 Thalia Hanniman while Nipissing’s #5 Rebecca Ramsay claimed top player honours for her squad.