The Wolves took a trip down the 401 to take on the Fleming Knights in their 1st OCAA regular season matchup of 2023 on Saturday January 14th. Algonquin went into the match with a 6-4 record. The Knights were still looking for their first win of the season. The two teams met on November 26th in Ottawa with the Wolves taking the first matchup 3 sets to 0.
Algonquin came out of the gates hot taking a 7-1 lead thanks to a 6 point serving streak from Maddy Nadeau capped off by an Ace. Fleming took a timeout to regroup and would bounce back to cut the lead to 7-4. The play went back and forth from there until Kristina Renwick rattled off 3 points in a row (1 kill and 2 aces) to push the lead to 18-10 and force the Knights to call their 2nd timeout. The Wolves would eventually take the 1st set 25-13 including 2 kills from Kieran Raymo, plus 2 blocks and an Ace from Morgan Ott in the final 7 points to close it out.
Coach Everton Senior switched things up in the second set sending some new faces onto the floor. It took the Wolves a while to get their bearings with Fleming taking an early 6-2 lead. Algonquin took over from there thanks in part to a 7 point serving run by Sabaath Mannucci to take a 12-6 lead. Fleming put up a fight closing the gap to 22-16, but that is as close as they would get. Erin Cunningham closed the set with a kill to give Algonquin the 25-17 win. First year left side Tia Perkins had a big set for the Wolves coming up with 5 kills.
The Wolves had an opportunity to finish it off in the 3rd set and they saved the best for last winning 25-10. Algonquin started off hot forcing a Fleming timeout with the Wolves up 12-6. Unfortunately for the Knights, the Wolves were the better team coming out of the break forcing a 2nd Fleming timeout with the score 17-8 in favor of Algonquin. Erin Cunningham came up with a second straight set ending kill to seal the Algonquin victory.
Kieran Raymo was the Wolves top performer recording 14 points on 6 kills and 7 blocks. Tia Perkins finished the match with 6 kills and 1 block. Kristina Renwick recorded 4 kills, 2 aces and 1 block. Last but not least, Morgan Ott tallied 2 kills, 2 aces and 2 blocks.
The win improves the Wolves record to 7-4, good for the 5th spot in the OCAA East. They will have a chance to move up in the standings at home this upcoming weekend when they take on the Seneca Sting on Friday at 6:00 PM (7-4 4th OCAA East) and the Loyalist Lancers (3-8 7th OCAA East) on Saturday at 4:00 PM.
Come out to the ARC and cheer on your Wolves!
