NORTH BAY, Ont. – The Western Mustangs kicked off their final weekend of regular season action with a three set sweep (25-23, 25-21, 25-18) of the Nipissing Lakers at the Robert J. Surtees Athletics Centre.
 
Western remains at the top of the OUA West Division at 15-3, matching McMaster's record to share the number one spot. Both teams have one game remaining on the schedule, leaving the top spot in the West to be determined tomorrow night.
 
The loss puts Nipissing's record at 8-10 to tie York for fourth in the East Division as the teams battle for the final playoff slot.
 
Kelsey Veltman's 15.5 points made her the highest scoring athlete on the floor after recording 13 kills and five assisted blocks. Kaleigh Matheson and Aja Gyimah followed on the purple and white scoresheet, totaling 11 points each.
 
Gyimah also made an impact on defence, with her ten digs matching that of libero Courtney Sestric and going unmatched by the Lakers.
 
Nipissing relied on Erika Lapierre to generate points, with her 11 kills and one ace leading the team, while Christina Caruso led the defensive effort with eight digs.
 
Set one saw the greatest resistance from the Lakers, who were only two points behind the Mustangs at the close of the set. Prior to the technical timeout the Mustangs held a five-point advantage, but Nipissing quickly worked their way back into the fray to closely tail Western for the remainder of the set.  
 
Serving was arguably what allowed Nipissing to stay so close to the purple and white score, with both Vanessa Arbour and Annabelle Harvey recording consecutive aces at different points in the frame. Arbour's three straight aces came just in time to help the Lakers bounce back and tie the set at 11-11, while Harvey's gave Nipissing their only lead of the first set at 17-19.
 
Despite the Lakers holding the edge from the baseline, Western fought their way to a 25-23 win for a 1-0 advantage heading into the next set.
 
The Mustangs secured a 25-21 victory in the following set after nearly halving the number of points lost from serving errors and having their most offensively efficient set of the match.
 
Western committed only four service errors – all of which came well before the technical timeout – while Candice Scott added a point from the baseline with an ace. Nipissing recorded nearly identical numbers, with four errors and two aces.
 
Offensively speaking, Matheson's second-set performance was a game-changer. The Vancouver native followed up a relatively quiet first set by being one of the most dominating athletes on the floor. Six of her nine kills came in set two to lead the Mustangs' offensive effort.
 
Nipssing bounce back in the third to go nearly point-by-point with the Mustangs, until a five point run finally broke the pattern and allowed the Mustangs to head into the technical up by four.
 
Tracey Hammerton led the charge at the net early in the set to keep the Lakers score close to that of Western.
 
However, once Emma Somerville hit the court to serve the Mustangs took off. Her run at the service line would only be bested by Gyimah's a few points later, with the returning All-Star serving seven straight. The Mustangs two extended serving runs took the set from a 10-10 tie to a 22-12 lead for the purple and white.
 
Only three points stood between Western and the 25-point mark remained by the time the Mustangs lost the serve, and Kat Tsiofas, Veltman, and Melissa Langegger each recorded one more kill to secure a 25-18 victory.
 
Western's regular season finale will take place tomorrow evening in York's Tait McKenzie Centre, and will determine whether the Mustangs enter playoffs ranked first or second in the OUA West. Game time is scheduled for 6 p.m., with fans able to stream all the action live on OUA.tv