The Guelph Gryphons men's volleyball team matched up against the York Lions tonight (Feb 4^th) at the W.F. Mitchell Centre for the Gryphon's last game of the regular season. It was an incredibly close match that ended in the fifth set, but the Lions ultimately took the game 3-2. Set scores were 25-22, 17-25, 25-21, 23-25, and 8-15.
 
The Gryphons end the regular season with a 9-9 record, the Gryphons have clinched a playoff spot but will wait till the end of the OUA regular season to see where they playoff position will be.  The Lions add another win for a 7-9 standing.
 
Set one set the precedent for the game as the score rose point-by-point between these two well-matched teams. Patrick Strzalkowski (St. Catharines, ON) played a crucial role tonight in stabilizing plays and setting up attacks for Winston Rosser (Whitby, ON), Drew Whitaker (Sharon, ON) and Greg Houston (Chatham, ON) to take advantage of. The Gryphons managed to stay on top on the score-board for the first and took it 25-22.
 
The Gryphons struggled in the second set and were faced with outside hitter Ray Szeto's attacks. Szeto capitalized with an impressive 23 kills in total in the game and was a constant force against Guelph's defence. The Gryphons put up a valiant fight but couldn't tighten the gap in points before the Lions hit 25.
 
Guelph rebounded in set three thanks to some great communication on the court. The Gryphons scored a number of aces in the third, and totaled an impressive seven aces across the board by the end of the game.  Two of those came from Rosser who also contributed 10 kills and 5 digs– second only to Whitaker with 12 kills, 8 digs and an ace.
 
The Lions and the Gryphons battled it out in the fourth. The score rose point-by-point right to the end with Szeto stirring the pot and Rosser and Whitaker responding. Strzalkowski continued to neutralize plays for the Gryphons and Rosser skillfully chose undefended spots on York's court to slam. Despite the Gryphon's efforts the Lions were still able to take the set 23-25.
 
The fifth and final set started out neck-to-neck between the two teams. Two controversial referee calls marked a change in the game for Guelph. The Lions began quickly building a lead over the Gryphons and in no time at all York had finished the set 8-15.
 
The Gryphons finish their regular season and must now wait for next week's results to determine their playoff positioning.