Thunderwolves out-matched by visiting Lancers

It’s been a tough second-half stretch for Lakehead University’s women’s volleyball team.

Things didn’t get any better on Saturday.

The Thunderwolves struggled in the middle of each set and couldn’t catch up, swept in three straight (16-25, 21-25, 18-25) to the visiting Windsor Lancers, their sixth straight loss in OUA competition.

How bad is it?

The team hasn’t won a set in five straight matches, a streak dating back to Jan. 22, when they took the Western Mustangs to five sets with home-court advantage at the Thunderdome.

“Today we just seemed a little shaky, we didn’t find the flow we normally have,” said left side Jen Casey, who just played the penultimate game of her university career.

“Our passing was kind of off and that was mostly it today.”

For the first 10 points or so on each side, the Wolves managed to hang tough with the Lancers, but lost their focus after that.

It was too tough to play catch-up, said Casey, a native of Winnipeg.

“Toward the middle, the second half of the set we started to fall behind and it was just a matter of chasing them. And that’s not any position you want to play in. It wasn’t the best,” said Casey, the immediacy of her career coming to an end on Sunday finally starting to set in.

Setter Vanessa Masters is the other fifth-year player on the Thunderwolves. Like Casey, she’ll don the LU colours for one final time on Sunday.

The team just didn’t execute well, the Thunder Bay-born Masters said.

“I think they did exactly what we thought they were going to do and we kind of did the same. But they were arable to execute it and we just weren’t able to execute our game plan. We missed some key serves at some crucial times that we shouldn’t have missed,” said Masters, buoyed by her personal fan club cheering her on throughout the match.

“We did a lot of things well, but we missed a few things at key times.”

Trailing 5-4 in the second set, the Lancers went on an 11-2 run to go up 16-6. The Wolves, facing set point, scored six straight to pull within three at 24-21, but were too far back to fend the Lancers off long enough to complete the comeback and even the match.

It was more of the same in the third. The two teams were tied 10-10, but a couple of miss hits by the Thunderwolves and some timely shots by Windsor and the Lancers quickly found themselves in front 19-13.

Once again LU rallied to pull within three, but dropped six of the final seven points of the match as Windsor put the game away in three.

“I would really like to finish strong tomorrow. I think (Vanessa) and I have a really strong connection so hopefully that will work out tomorrow … Today was  good stepping stone for that,” Casey said.

The Wolves and Lancers game Sunday is scheduled for a noon start at the Thunderdome.