Fredericton, NB- In what has become what might be the best rivalry in the ACAA, the St. Thomas University Tommies defeated the Holland College Hurricanes in men's volleyball action Saturday night at the Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium 3-1 (30-28, 20-25, 25-23, 29-27).
The ACAA Finals has had the Tommies and Hurricanes face each other in the past two years, and the atmosphere of the "The Pit" on this evening was nothing short of electric, reminiscent of the 2017-18 ACAA Championships hosted by the Tommies.
"The atmosphere was great today," said Tommies head coach, Henri Mallet. "There's a chance we see them in the first matchup at Championships and they wanted to come out and send a message today."
The teams split the first two sets, and in the third set the Hurricanes held leads of 13-8 and 17-13 before the Tommies would come back to take the set and give themselves the opportunity to take the match in the fourth set, where they would hold match point three times before finally pulling out the 29-27 victory.
Despite the win, Mallet wasn't happy with how his team performed.
"There were stretches in the first, third and fourth sets where our guys didn't panic, showed some maturity and we played those points the way we can. The rest of the game wasn't our team. The passing wasn't on, we weren't efficient and we made it way too easy on their block defence. We have to give them credit too, they made some great plays on defence and it was the best game that I have seen Gordon [Veitch] play in the couple years we have played against him."
Veitch would finish the match with a game high 17 kills while adding 17 digs. Adam McDougall would lead the Tommies with 16 kills, while Nathan Brown had a game high 23 digs.
These two teams will be back at it tomorrow at "The Pit" and Mallet is looking forward to getting his team back out on the court.
"The good news is that we get to go home, rest up and hopefully play better than we did today."
Opening serve is set for 1:00pm.