Lancer volleyball good start for 2012

By Melchizedek Maquiso & Meagan Pecjak

BELLEVILLE, Ont. (14/01/12) - Chris Holden (L) of the Cambrian Golden Shield attempt tries to block the volley of Matt Woods (R) of the Loyalist Lancers during the men's volleyball game against the Loyalist Lancers held at Loyalist College in Belleville, Jan. 14, 2012. The Lancers defeated the Golden Shield 3-0. Photo by Melchizedek Maquiso.

The Loyalist Lancers men’s and women’s volleyball teams had an overall great start in 2012 by winning three out of their four games at home.

The men’s volleyball team won all two of their games, while the Lady Lancers won one.

Both men and women’s teams had a packed weekend as they battled the Cambrian Golden Shield and the Boreal Vipers on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

The Lancers swept Cambrian, 3-0 on Saturday and Boreal, 3-2 on Sunday.

Despite the weekend sweep, Dave Templar, coach of the men’s team wasn’t too happy with how his team played in the year opener.

“Not as we have planned. At the end of the weekend, we came away with two wins which I’m very thankful for. I still feel as though we left a lot of room for improvement and it’s somewhat disheartening at this point in the season,” he says.

Templar felt that his team’s performance during the weekend can be attributed to plain laziness. He added that coming off the break was not an excuse in last weekend’s performance.

“Yes, we’re just coming off the break but the break should sort of re-energized and re-focused our guys and yet I haven’t fully seen the refocused and reshift for this semester yet, so I was hoping that that would come out this weekend.”

In the end, Templar acknowledged: “No coach can never be unhappy with wins. I can only be mildly disappointed in the way that we got the wins but at the end of the day, they’re wins.”

In the women’s games, the #1 OCAA East division Cambrian women’s volleyball team proved too much for the Lady Lancers as they were routed 3-0 in Saturday’s game.

“We won in confidence but it quickly got shattered because they do have a couple of strong players. But as soon as we went down a couple of points, that was just the end for us. We had a breakdown in communication and we had a breakdown in confidence,” said Lady Lancers co-captain Kirsten Talsma explaining the main reasons why the Golden Shield beat their team.

“I probably personally would’ve had a positive attitude. I would’ve tried harder to bring my team back because I personally haven’t fulfilled my captain role to the best I could have,” she says, referring to the sweep in three sets by Cambrian.

Despite their first loss of the year, the Lady Lancers came back on Sunday, beating Boreal in three sets.

“We served tough and our passing was much, much better,” said Talsma.

Amy Hoskin, assistant coach for the Lady Lancers, is looking forward more wins for the Lady Lancers this year.

“I think we’re really off to a really good start.  The beginning of first semester the girls looked really strong and they were playing really, really hard.  We had a little bit of a rough go towards the end of first semester but we’re looking to pick it back up and get things going again,” she said.