LONDON, Ont. – The Mustangs won't celebrate Senior Day until tomorrow, but that didn't stop Chris Newcombe and Zeid Hamadeh from stealing the show in Fridays five set win over the Guelph Gryphons. 
 
With the win the purple and white record moves to 13-3, and they've already locked up second place in the OUA West. Guelph's 7-9 record puts them in fifth, with the loss officially eliminating the team from playoff contention.
 
"It helped us get better and that's what we want to focus on," said head coach Jim Sage about the team's performance. "These games are against really good teams that will make us better for our playoff game next Saturday. Hopefully things carry over […] our goal is always to get better whether or not we go up or down in the standings."
 
Newcombe and Hamadeh – both of whom will be recognized during tomorrow's Senior Day ceremony – led the Mustangs offence with 17 and 15 points respectively. Defensively, Matt Hooker and Nathan Phelps led the Mustangs with 11 digs apiece, while graduating senior Bryn Ramsay had 10. 
 
Middle Matthew Baxter led the Gryphons with a 15 point performance, while Kendrick Kerr was close behind with 13.5 points of his own.
 
"We have a bit of a rivalry with [Guelph], and we wanted to send them home today," said libero Nathan Phelps. "They're also the only team in the league we haven't beaten yet. […] We wanted to have a bit of a revenge game, for sure."
 
The first set was arguably one of the tightest games the Mustangs have played in months, with the teams being only one or two points apart for the majority of the set.
 
Zachary Newman was largely responsible for Guelph keeping up with Western, as the outside racked up seven kills throughout the set.  However, the team was also working against themselves by handing the Mustangs seven points from serving errors.  As a point of comparison, Western only recorded three serving errors.
 
Guelph and Western remained locked together on the scoreboard, with the Gryphons utilizing a large portion of their bench throughout the set. Ten different athletes would hit the floor as head coach Cal Wigston was quick to adjust his lineup anytime a new strength emerged on the purple and white end of the court.
 
The score remained close right up until the final point, with Guelph only holding a two-point lead at the end of the game (25-23).
 
Western responded by opening the following set with a four-point run to force Guelph into an early timeout.  The lead would eventually be erased by the Gryphons to tie things up at 19-19.
 
Neither team gave up unearned points as the end of the set drew closer, forcing the teams into more substantial rallies. Defensively speaking, Hooker was all over the court, an effort matched by Guelph's Josh Green.
 
However, both Green and Guelph's blockers struggled to get a read on Cranshaw and Hamadeh as the duo combined for ten kills.  The offensive breakout for both athletes marked a staunch departure from the previous set where the duo combined for only two kills. 
 
The Gryphons were, however, successful in cutting down the threat from Bryn Ramsay. The fifth-year veteran has been a standout on the purple and white roster all season and typically leads the team's offence by averaging around three kills a set.
 
Kendrick Kerr was the most successful blocker on the Gryphon scoresheet, but the team as a whole collected four stops throughout the second set.
 
Despite Guelph's ability to keep a lid on Western's biggest offensive threat, the Mustangs rolled to a 25-22 victory.
 
Blocking continued to be strong in the third set, but this time it was Baxter who led the effort. After terrorizing Western at the net all evening, he brought an end to the third frame with a massive block to bring the Gryphons' score to 25.
 
"We were in control of both the sets that we lost, and then they kind of slipped away. They showed a lot of heart to bounce back [for the fourth set]."
 
Western was able to stall Guelph at the 23-point mark thanks to a strong performance from Newcombe, but a missed serve returned momentum to the Gryphons.
 
"He knows he's on his last run, and he's going to go hard. He plays with a ton of heart," said Sage about the graduating senior's performance.
 
Despite struggling during the first set, Guelph's performance from the service line was one of the strongest points of their game. They put up four aces throughout the set while minimizing the errors.
 
Guelph would keep the number of service errors low throughout fourth set but struggled to stay as close to the purple and white score as they did in earlier sets.
 
The Mustangs were blocking better than they had all game, with Hooker, Newcombe, Hamadeh, Ramsay and Hammond all shutting down Guelph at the net.  The Gryphons started swinging harder only to send the ball out the back of the court.
 
"We work at [blocking] a lot. We take away angles for certain hitters, but sometimes our block is just meant for our defense to dig it up," noted Sage. "Hammond was great in that way, he made some adjustments and kept shutting down one of their best middles. It made a difference."
 
As a result Guelph's hitting percentage hit a match-low in the fourth, coming up negative with 12 errors and only ten kills.
 
With Guelph's offence unable to generate points, the Mustangs built up the most substantial lead of the match for a 25-16 win to force a fifth set.
 
Both teams made a couple of costly serving errors early in the fifth, but Western would be the first to hit the eight-point mark.
 
Communication on the Guelph end began to break down after switching sides at the halfway mark as the team allowed balls to drop between athletes. A pair of subs joined the floor in an attempt to get the team back on track, but Newcombe and Ramsay had a different plan for the end of the game.
 
The duo stepped up to lead the Mustangs offensively in the short set, allowing the team to take a 15-12 victory to win the match.
 
"There were times when we didn't quite match their intensity and other times – like in the fifth set – we did. That was where it really showed, that we were ready. Our blocking and defense really showed up when we needed it to."
 
Western returns to the court tomorrow evening to take on the Warriors. The matchup will serve as the team's Senior Day game, with the contest set to begin at 8 p.m.