GUELPH, Ont. – Overcoming a mid-game slump, the Mustangs posted a hard-fought five set victory (25-22, 25-20, 22-25, 23-25, 15-11) over the Guelph Gryphons at the W.F. Mitchell Centre to earn their second victory of the season and hit new career highs on Friday night.
 
The purple and white record now sits at 2-1, while Guelph remains winless at 0-3.
 
Much as he did in the Mustangs first two matches, Gavin Taylor again topped the purple and white scoresheet after recording a new career high of 29.5 points from 24 kills, four aces, and three assisted blocks. Both his 24 kills and four aces also set new single game milestones for the Brampton native.
 
Also topping previous career highs were starting setter Brad Hockin with 55 assists, Zeid Hamadeh with 12 kills, Chris Newcombe with 8 assisted blocks, and Seth Siegfried with 15 digs.
 
Taking the first four points of the game, the Mustangs quickly established a point lead that would remain almost untouched for the first half of the set.
 
Guelph, despite eliminating unforced errors and throwing up blocks to stanch the flow of Mustang kills, was unable to overcome the original point difference as they were still down by four at 11-7.
 
With a service error from Guelph, the teams headed to their benches for the technical timeout at 16-13 in favour of the visiting Mustangs.
 
Returning to the floor Nathan Phelps picked up an easy ace to further extend the purple and white lead. However, Guelph began to better utilize their height advantage, getting on top of the ball during attacks and cutting off point leader Taylor at the net to bring the score to 20-19.
 
Narrowing the deficit and riding their momentum, Guelph matched the purple and white score to tie the set at 21-21.
 
Slowly edging back ahead, the Mustangs took the first set 25-22 on a red and gold attack error.
 
An exchange of points opened up the second set, until Hamadeh took up serving for the purple and white. Sending out balls that Guelph struggled to get a clean pass off of, Western picked up a two-point lead at 5-3.
 
Still two points behind at 11-9, the Gryphons still had not topped the purple and white score. At times narrowing the point difference to one, Guelph relied on impenetrable blocks to throw the Mustangs off their game.
 
Headed back onto the floor from the technical timeout at 16-12, the Mustangs pounded through the red and gold offence. Outscoring the other half of the court 4-1, Western held tightly onto their lead at 20-13.
 
Despite slowing down the stream of points, the second set was still marked down as a purple and white victory at 25-20.
 
Guelph opened up the third set by picking up a lead – albeit a small one – for the first time in the match at 1-3. Western soon eclipsed the Gryphons score, before the home side tied things up at 8-8 and then again at 12-12.
 
With both teams making forced and unforced errors they continued to trade points, struggling to break away from the opposition's score.  
 
However, Kerr, proving to be somewhat unblockable, began to take control of the match for Guelph, pushing the Gryphons into the lead at 20-23.
 
Stalling the red and gold win, the Mustangs began to battle their way back to the top of the scoreboard until a service error won the set for Gryphons at 22-25.
 
Another point exchange opened up the fourth set, with Guelph coming out on top after a line of servers that put the purple and white court in trouble.
 
Up by five points at 5-10, Guelph had established their largest lead of the night.
 
Rallying to match the red and gold score at 10-10, the Mustangs briefly fell back behind before catching back up at 13-13.
 
Despite arguably playing their best set of the game, the Gryphons score tumbled below that of the Mustangs after attack errors chipped away at the lead to send both teams off the court for the technical timeout at 16-13 in favour of Western.
 
Attacks from Luke Woud and Josh Green helped the Gryphons match the purple and white score at 22-22, while Dallas Keith kept the Mustang attacks from finding open floor, helping Guelph take the fourth set 23-25. 
 
The Mustangs opened up the fifth set with a three point run to force Guelph into an early timeout.
 
Switching sides at the halfway mark, the Mustangs were up 8-3 following what can only be described as Taylor's strongest performance of the night. Cycling into the backcourt to serve, the Mustangs were left without their point leader at the net and began to drop points to the Gryphons.
 
Crawling their way back into the game with targeted serves and attacks, Guelph was eventually tied the final set at 10-10.
 
That was as close as things would get however, as the Mustangs finished the game on a 5-1 scoring run to take the set 15-11 and the match 3-2.
 
The Mustangs are back on the court November 6, when they take on the Lancers in Windsor. The first serve is expected to go out at 7 p.m., and can be watched live on OUA.tv