HAMILTON, ON - The University of Guelph women's volleyball team were defeated in their OUA regular season opener 3-1 on the road Friday night at McMaster. Set scores were 9-25, 15-25, 26-24 & 15-25.

The first set saw the Gryphons fall behind early and a 10 point serving run by McMaster allowed them to win easily 25-9. Another poor start in set 2 saw Guelph behind 7-1 and they were never got to within 5 points as they fell 25-15. In the third set, the Gryphons saw their first lead of the match as they jumped ahead 10-5 early on. Guelph expanded the lead later and were comfortably ahead at 23-17 when a 7 point serving run by McMaster got them to match point at 24-23. The Gryphons sided out and then scored 2 points on tough serves to take the set 26-24. Guelph's momentum was short lived though as McMaster surged ahead in set 4 helped by some Gryphon serving errors. McMaster opened up a big lead in the middle of the set and were able to finish at 25-15.

Gryphons head coach Paul Funk stated, "Despite the scores in the first two sets, we actually had some stretches of good play but McMaster just outplayed us at points. The fourth set was disappointing for us as we had a chance to get back in the match at the start of that set, but some sloppy play on our part allowed Mac to regain their momentum." 

Maddie DeDecker led the Guelph offense with 11 points (9 kills, 2 aces) followed by Victoria Golebiowski with 9 (5 kills, 4 aces) while Kayla McMullen (15 digs) and Cayte Wilson (13 digs) led the defense. Guelph's next action is next Friday when they go on the road to play Western in London.