LONDON, Ont. – Mustang Kelsey Veltman tallied 11 kills against the RMC Paladins for Western to win in three straight sets the second night in a row (25-20, 25-11, 25-13) at Alumni Hall on Saturday night.
 
"Any time you play RMC, like we know they're a little smaller, but they're really gritty. They're super aggressive; they're tough defenders and tough servers," said Mustangs head coach Melissa Bartlett. "I think most times you play a team like that, it's kind of feeling them out first or second set, so then we went in to set two and three with a lot more confidence, knowing how we could beat them."

The purple and white extend their winning streak to three games, good to maintain second place in the OUA West Division with a 5-2 record. The Paladins record is now at 1-8; they are second last in the OUA East division.
 
The Mustangs spread kills and digs across the board—all the players contributed to the night's win. Veltman was among some of the stand out performances with 11 kills, including five in the last set, and 14 points. Melissa Langegger was key to Western's last set success, recording eight kills and nine digs in the final set. Carly Kimmett tallied six kills during the three sets and received eight points total.
 
The Paladins' offence was more concentrated. RMC's MVP was Kara Stephan, who recorded 11 kills (seven in the last set) and nine digs. Her 12 points from the night is double Julia Krebs-Vandeloo's, who had the second highest points.
 
Bartlett also noted that setter Jessica Lam had a stand out performance distributing the ball on her first game of the season.
 
"It feels pretty good [to get three wins in a row]. It was really nice to have the whole team behind us, and all the girls were really supportive," said Lam. "The whole atmosphere of the gym was really positive and really energetic, so that really helped with the win and everything."
 
The Paladins recorded the first point of the night off a Western serve. RMC would take the early lead, tallying three points in a row, but Western recovered to get ahead.
 
The Paladins fought hard to match the purple and white and tied up the score at 8-8, and again at 16-16. Western struggled to maintain the lead, but they eventually found their footing and put a few more points in between the teams to end the first set 25-20.
 
"What I'd like to see continued would be getting everyone in and getting as much depth from our bench as we can," said Veltman. "We definitely had really good casing and everything, and I think something we can work on would be defense and constantly just being ready for anything because I think we were a little bit caught off guard in the first set, but we woke up later on, and I think that's something we can improve on throughout the whole year."
 
The Mustangs kicked off the second set with very different play; marking the first point and quickly going up 8-0. Kate Ferguson and Kristina Curcin proved to be a deadly blocking combo, and they counted for a couple of successful blocks against RMC. The Paladins made nine errors and only tallied five kills, allowing Western to dominate the set and finish with a score of 25-11.
 
"I think the keys would definitely be our attacking. It was pretty good," said Veltman. "We never really hesitated and we looked for open court all the time, and I think we did a great job finding all the open space that we could, and we just kind of let it rip and just played with full heart and just kind of let loose."
 
The third set would be the final of the night as the Mustangs continued to dominate on the court. The Mustangs logged six points before RMC could get one. The Paladins proved to be a tough team and fought hard to regain momentum. When the score hit 21-7, RMC appeared to have a mid-game comeback and recorded four points in a row. This short spree would not be enough to catch up to the Mustangs, however, and Western would win the final set 25-13.
 
Tonight was the last game of the semester for the Mustangs before the winter break. "It's a difficult break," said Bartlett. "It's definitely important that we stay in shape, but it's also important to have a little bit of physical and mental break. So, we do practice maybe two times a week for the next couple of weeks heading into exams, and then we come back early January and go hard for two weeks of a mini pre-season before our next game January 12^th."
 
Western will be back in action in the new year when they face the Ryerson Rams Friday, January 12^th at 6:00 pm in Toronto.