LONDON, Ont. – Celebrating Justin Scapinello's final regular season home game as a Mustang in the best way possible, Western secured a four set win (25-27, 25-18, 25-14, 25-9) over the RMC Paladins on Saturday afternoon at Alumni Hall on Senior Day.

With the win, the Mustang record sits at 10-8 as they sit comfortably in sixth place within the OUA. RMC remains in 11^th place, with a 0-18 record.
 
Joining the Mustangs as a transfer from Mohawk College, honouree Scapinello has recorded a total of 724 points throughout his three-year career with the Mustangs as of February 1. His time playing for Western comes to an end after holding a CCAA All-Canadian title while at Mohawk, and competing in two CIS national championships.
 
"The lineup we put out there didn't play quite as well as we had anticipated," says assistant coach Rob Atkinson about his team's performance in the first set. "They're great players, and they perform really well day in and day out in practice, but it just didn't happen today for a variety of reasons. Through nobody's individual fault, it just didn't work out as we had anticipated in the first set."
 
Despite taking an early lead, defensive errors from the Mustangs allowed the Paladins to overtake Western and lead by two points at 6-8.
 
The Mustangs rallied to match RMC's score at 9-9, but were unable to shake them off as the score remained tied at 12-12.
 
Pulling back into the lead, the Paladins capitalized on defensive and communication errors on the Western half of the court. Four points behind at 14-18, the Mustangs continued to struggle with blocks from RMC.
 
At 17-23, the Mustangs were forced into a time-out. Returning to the floor, Western quickly knocked out three points and pushed the Paladins into a timeout of their own at 20-23.
 
The interruption proved to be insufficient for RMC to refocus, as they called another timeout moments later at 23-24.
 
Taking the advantage at 25-26, after a kill from RMC's Adam Lupton, the 6'5 middle ended the game moments later with a block.
 
Setter Matt Hooker started off the second set on a high note for the Mustangs with a service ace that left the Paladins reeling. The Mustangs followed up with five points – interrupted by only one from RMC to bring the score to 6-1.
 
With the Paladin score doubled at 14-7, Western used powerful attacks and serving consistency to keep RMC at bay.
 
However, the Paladins had other ideas for the set. Shaving away at the deficit, they outscored the Mustangs and pushed them into a timeout at 18-15. Returning to the court, Western was ruthless in their attacks. A kill from second year Mustang Gavin Taylor would end the set 25-18. 
 
The third set began with an exchange of points that only broke when the Mustangs began pulling out stronger attacks. At 9-5 Western finally began to establish the lead they wanted to feel secure in their position and shortly forced a Paladin timeout at 11-5.
 
Back on the floor, the Paladins focused their attacks into established areas of Mustang weakness to try and close the point gap. Unwilling to allow a comeback from RMC, Western extended their lead to eight points at 19-11.
 
Closing out the set at 25-14 for the Mustangs was an error from the Paladins.
 
Again taking an early 5-1 lead, Western was anxious to close out the fourth set quickly. Breaking through RMC's blocks and tight defense kept the Mustangs ahead.
 
At 17-6, the Paladin deficit seemed impossible to overcome.
 
Serving the last few points of the match was Chris Newcombe, who took over at 22-9. Three consecutive points later the Mustangs finished the set 25-9 following a kill from Scapinello. 
 
Mustang Senior Day honouree Scapinello topped the scoresheet for both teams, recording 30.5 points. Taylor followed up with 15.5 points, and set a new career high for number of kills within one match. Also improving upon a career high was Winnipeg's Hooker, who established a new personal best for assists within one match. Adam Lupton and Blake McClelland shared the top spot on RMC's scoresheet, each contributing 10 points across the four sets.
 
"I think we had a slow start today," said Hooker. "We were just going through the motions, but I think we came out strong in the second set, and that's kinda been what we've been good at these past few weeks. I think that's why we went 2-0 this weekend. We hope to have a good weekend next weekend, York and Nipissing are both really big games. If we can close out the season 2-0, that would be great and we'll be looking good for playoffs."
 
The Mustangs return to the court Saturday, February 7 when they travel to Toronto to take on the OUA fifth place York Lions. Game time is scheduled for 4 p.m., with online streaming of the match available at OUA.tv.