CHICOUTIMI, QUE – Elyssa Lajmi scored 12.5 points as the McGill women’s volleyball team extended its win streak to five with a three-set sweep over the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi at the Pavillon sportif, Sunday.
With five games remaining before playoffs, the result improved McGill’s record to 9-7 and moved the Martlets into a three-way tie for third-place in the eight-team RSEQ conference with both Laval (9-5) and UQAM (9-7), who hold games in hand.
It also gave McGill a three-game season series sweep against the seventh-place Inuk (3-14) and upped the lifetime series record to an unblemished 6-0 against UQAC.
Corinne Houde led UQAC with 12.5 points.
Despite the 3-0 score, the key statistics were deceptively balanced. McGill had a slight edge in both kills (32-28) and digs (37-35), while UQAC had the advantage in aces (8-6) and stuff blocks (9-7). The key was in the killing percentages, where McGill posted an 18.8 per cent success ratio, compared to the Inuk, who were alarmingly low at 5.2 per cent.
The game tipped off at 11 am, barely 25 hours after Friday night’s rendezvous and McGill head coach Rachèle Béliveau used her bench extensively and as a result, the numbers were spread around evenly.
“The game was a little closer than Friday’s win here,” said Béliveau from the team bus in the midst of a five-hour trip back from Chicoutimi. “It wasn’t a fluid game and the muscles were a little tight, on both sides.
“Our goal is to have good execution, no matter who our opponent is. UQAC is a different style of team and our focus was on how we should adjust to that… We we didn’t change our game plan from yesterday but we seemed to have more confusion on the court today. So we need to work on improving our group organization and cohesion.”
McGill (9-7) returns to the court on Jan. 31, when hosting UQTR (3-12) in a 6:30 pm tipoff at Love Competition Hall. The Martlets will then close out the regular season with road games at ETS (0-14) and UQTR, followed by critical home meetings against UQAM (9-6) and Montreal (14-1).
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