Upset special

Jorie Daymond wants a second chance at the York Lions.

Teammate Vanessa Chorkaway says she doubts any team in the OUA want the Lakehead Thunderwolves showing up on their playoff map.

The fourth-ranked Ottawa Gee-Gees learned that the hard way on Sunday afternoon. The Wolves pulled off the biggest upset of the season, knocking off the Gee-Gees 3-1 in the opening match of a rare volleyball doubleheader, forced by a southern Ontario storm that delayed Ottawa from leaving the nation’s capital in time for Saturday’s scheduled contest.

Lakehead, out of gas in the second game, fell 3-1 in the finale.

“We’re excited to go to playoffs,” said Daymond, ironically enough an Ottawa native. “We did get the loss, but we’re still looking forward to next weekend and a rematch with York.

“We’ve got our heads on straight, but we’re ready.”

The Lions were Lakehead’s first date on the OUA schedule, and took them out 3-1, the first of five straight losses the Thunderwolves endured to start the season.

Though they managed to win once in four sets – and lost one by a 25-5 count – against the Lions, Daymond said York (16-1) should be in for a not so pleasant surprise this time around.

“We’re excited to show them how much we’ve grown since then,” Daymond said. “They probably don’t even know what kind of Lakehead team is coming next week.”

Chorkaway, who coyly avoided the question of whether she plans to return for a fifth season next fall, said of all the games she’s played to date, the opener, which Lakehead won 25-19, 25-23, 25-27 and 25-23, will stick with her the longest.

“That’s probably my favourite win of all my years here. It felt so, so great to do,” she said.

Showing they can beat one of the nation’s best is huge confidence boost heading into post-season play.

“We know that we can play with the best teams now,” said Chorkaway, rested in the fourth set of the second game, her coach not wanting to aggravate a shoulder that cost her all of last season.

“We know that now. We know that we can work harder in practice this week to get ready for practice and there’s no one who can stop us now.”

Lakehead finished 9-9 and is slotted in the eighth and final OUA playoff berth, a first since 2005-06. But the team won six straight before falling to Ottawa in Game 2, and are a much improved team in the new year.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t want to play us, especially after a loss like today. Now we’re more hungry, we’re more upset and more ready to go through,” Chorkaway said.

Lakehead coach Chris Green, who wasn’t happy with the effort in the second match, especially after they took the opening set 26-24, only to drop three straight, said he understands it was tough to ask either team to play two gruelling games in a six-hour span.

“Still, too many points were too easy to give away in that second set. There was a little bit of quit in there and it got frustrating … It’s a lot to ask for them to do it again, but they need to learn to do that.”

He’d rather focus on the upset win in the opening match.

“For us, it means what we’ve been preaching all year, that you’re more than capable of beating any team in this country,” Green said, calling it one of the biggest wins in the program’s history, if not the biggest.

“We’ve said that. We can dig anybody. There’s nobody out there we can’t dig.

“And we can serve teams off the floor and make their offence predictable. And they know that. Now they’ve got York on Saturday, the No. 1 team in the OUA. Let’s see if we can knock off York and go and prove that we can play with them.”