Men's volleyball looking to build off 2-1 record at Memorial's AUS-RSEQ Interlock

The UNB Varsity Reds men's volleyball team finished their first weekend of regular season play with at 2-1 record at Memorial's AUS-RSEQ Interlock.

The tournament started on a great high, when the V-Reds took Laval in straight sets (25-20, 25-23, 25-23). Laval had been ranked sixth in Canada by the CIS just last week. 

UNB head coach Dan McMorran says Laval was playing extremely well and was definitely the team to beat.

"We had our hands full right off the bat with them," he said. "We came out and probably played as well as we did when we were out west in Brandon. We served extremely tough and defended extremely well, and we had to do a couple of those things in order to beat a team like Laval. So that was an extremely good result for us. 

Leading the scoring for UNB against Laval was Ryan Colpitts. Colpitts had 15.5 points, with three digs and 13 kills. Behind Colpitts was Marc White with 11.5 points, including ten digs and ten kills. Craig Toonders was named Player of the Game. 

Day two of the Interlook got underway with a match against Montreal. UNB took the early lead, winning the first two sets (25-20, 25-22). It looked good on paper, but McMorran says there's no doubt they weren't playing as well as they had been the night before.

"Montreal's played us tough over the last number of years," he said. "They got a good jump on us in the third set and we never were able to catch up in the third set. That kind of changed the tone for the remainder for the match."

Montreal took the third and fourth set (11-25, 19-25), and the game went into a fifth-set tiebreaker. UNB battled back from being down 7-10 to even the score, but they would eventually lose the set 13-15. 

The Varsity Reds then had to regroup to face Sherbrooke later that day. McMorran says Sherbrooke is a very determined, defensive team, and UNB knew they'd have to play well in order to come out on top.

The V-Reds came out with a slightly different line-up and played consistent and solid volleyball. They took the match 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-21). Leading the scoring for UNB this time was Player of the Game Brett LeDrew with 12 points including eight kills and one dig. Not far behind with ten points was Colpitts again, posting eight kills and four digs despite switching to play right-side all weekend.

McMorran says the past weekend's results have definitely given the team a lot to think about going into this weekend's game against AUS rival Dalhousie.

"We're a team right now that when we're making the right selections, things go well, and when we're not, it's costing us. So we're not getting away with bad decisions and the calibre of the competition that we're playing is not allowing us to get away with bad decisions," he said.

That being said, when the Varsity Reds are playing the defensive side of the game well, they seem to be thriving.

"We're at a good spot right now," McMorran added. "We're changing some things, and the guys are responding. So we're hoping to get better and better."

The Varsity Reds play next at 8pm on Saturday, November 1, when they host Dalhousie.

They play against Dalhousie again at 1pm the next day.