LONDON, Ont. - After a dominating performance over the Waterloo Warriors in the OUA quarter-finals, the Western Mustangs men's volleyball team is off to the OUA Final Four and will take on the Queen's Gaels on Friday March 5 at McMaster's Burridge Gymnasium in Hamilton, Ont., at 8 p.m.
The winner will play the winner of the McMaster-Guelph semifinal which will be played at 6 p.m.
The matchup against the Gaels will not be a cake-walk for the Mustangs. In the regular season, the Gaels finished in second place in the OUA, recording one more win and two more points than the third-place Mustangs in a highly competitive division.
In terms of matchups, it doesn't get more even in men's volleyball than the Mustangs and Gaels. While both were neck-and-neck with the McMaster in the race for first place in the OUA, they split the season series.
Each team won at home by a score of 3-1, with Western winning back in mid-November, then falling at Queen's, without OUA player of the year Eric Simon, in early-February.
The Mustangs will needs to do a good job of neutralizing Joren Zeeman (Cambridge, Ont.) and Michael Amorso (Toronto). Zeeman was second in the OUA averaging 4.89 points and 4.09 kills per set, meanwhile Amoroso was second on the Gaels in scoring, behind only Zeeman.
For the Gaels, it will be a matter of trying to keep
Mathieu Poulin (Winnipeg) in check as he's been the go-to-guy for the Mustangs as of late.
Simon (London, Ont.) will be another player for the Gaels may need to be weary of, as the OUA's to player leads all players with 32 serving aces and is among the league leaders in sever other categories including kills, blocks, digs and points.
OUA rookie of the year,
Phil James (Ottawa) will be another man in purple looking to make some noise, with 117 kills and 23 serving aces go along with his 33 digs and 179 points on the season.
The semifinal winners faceoff on Saturday March 6 at 7 p.m. at Burridge Gymnasium. There is no bronze-medal game for semifinal losers in men's volleyball.
The winner of the OUA championship will compete at the CIS men's volleyball championship hosted by Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. from March 12-14.
